Family garden games ideas

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With the weather warming up nicely and the evenings getting lighter for longer, my children are spending more and more time playing in the garden.  Apart from the obvious benefits of outdoor play – lots of fresh air, exercise and less mess indoors spring to mind – I love the fact that this time of year gives us scope for a whole host of family games that you just can’t manage indoors.  Here are some ideas for how you can easily use your garden as an outdoor playroom for lots of family fun.

garden games obstacle course

Make your own obstacle course

This is a great one for involving all ages.  Use whatever you can find to create your own unique obstacle course – things like hula hoops, balls & racquets, bouncy hoppers, a skipping rope and a football to dribble are all great.  You can make it as difficult or as easy as you like, and introduce some maths too by timing each person and trying to beat the record.  The grown-ups always get really competitive with this one!

garden games penalty shoot out

Penalty shoot-out

This is a great quick game that doesn’t need much space.  You just need to mark out your goal with something non-breakable and choose your penalty spot, then you can all take it in turns to be the penalty taker and the goalkeeper.  Decide at the start how many shots you each get, and to make things a bit more fun you can see who comes up with the silliest goal celebration!

garden games relay race

Take inspiration from Sports Day

There’s a reason why Sports Day games haven’t changed much over the years; they’re hard to beat.  You really don’t need many ‘props’ for this kind of game too; egg & spoon races are easy to re-create using a ball instead of an egg for less mess, a relay race is great for all ages and just needs a baton, and if your children are a little older a there-legged race just needs some pieces of rope.  I always get my kids to draw up the scoreboard for this one, which keeps them busy while we get things set up.

garden games water squirter

Good old-fashioned water games

Playing with water out in the sunshine is a guaranteed winner with kids – and adults – of all ages.  If you have a garden sprinkler you can challenge the kids to run through it or jump over it without getting wet – harder than it sounds!  Or go for some old-fashioned water fun with empty squirty bottles (sports cap water bottles or clean washing-up liquid bottles work well here) in the paddling pool.  And of course who can resist an all-out water fight?  This is where water blasters, water balloons and buckets really come in handy.

For lots of other outdoor game ideas take a look at my garden games Pinterest board.

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Catherine is a gardener, plant lover, writer, and award winning author of children’s nature books. Her blog is a Vuelio Top 5 gardening blog and her work has been featured in many online and print publications including Grow Your Own Magazine, House Beautiful, Daily Mail, Tesco Magazine, Suttons, Thompson & Morgan, and many more. She is also a member of the Garden Media Guild.

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  150. would love to win these, give me the reason to get my bum uinto gear and get the garden sorted…

  160. Done. Also Liked Poundstretcher on Facebook, Liked Growing Family on Facebook & Followed Poundstretcher on Pinterest

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  242. All done and followed all options – user names for Twitter and Pinterest cward5544 and FB Claire d ward

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