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8 Good Old-Fashioned Outdoor Games
Recapture your childhood by getting some fresh air with your family playing these fondly remembered outdoor games.
What You Need:
- 2 handmade flags (a t-shirt or towel works)
- 2 different colored sets of arm- or headbands made of crepe paper or ribbon
- Formation: Divide the group into two teams. Identify each by a set of arm or headbands
How to Play:
Each team has its own flag and designated area. The goal is for each team to grab the other team’s flag and bring it back to their home base. If a player gets caught on enemy ground with the flag, the player goes to jail and the flag is returned to home ground. Prisoners can be freed if a teammate runs over to the enemy's jail without being caught. The team that successfully brings the other team’s flag to its home base, without being caught, wins.
What You Need: Nothing!
How to Play:
Teams hold hands, forming two lines across from one another. A member of one team calls a member of the other team over by saying, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send [insert player’s name] over.” The player whose name is called then runs across to the other group, trying to break through the line. If the player succeeds, he picks a member of the opposite team to join his team. If the player does not break through the line, he joins the other team.
What you need:
What you do:
- At the beginning of a dodgeball game, the balls are lined up on the central dividing line for the "opening rush." Some members of each team run up to try to grab as many balls as they can. They then throw or roll the balls back to their other teammates. Players cannot pick up a ball and throw it at the opposing team immediately.
- The object of the game is to get all the other team's members out by hitting them with one of the balls (i.e., without hitting the roof, the floor, any of the walls, or an outside object and rebounding off.)
- A hit only counts if you hit a person below the shoulders (to make it safer).
- If a player catches the ball that is thrown at him or her, the thrower of the ball is automatically out and the team that caught the ball can reinstate the player who has been out the longest.
- Players can pick up dead balls and throw them at the opposing players.
- The game ends when every member of one of the teams is out.
- Find out more about the rules of dodgeball here.
What You Need: Nothing!
How to Play:
The player designated as "it" stands a good distance off from the rest of the kids, with his back turned to the rest of the group. He calls, "Green Light!" and the children run toward him until he says, "Red Light.” "It" turns around and tries to catch anyone who is moving. If he sees someone moving, that person must go back to the start line. Play continues until someone runs up and tags It. Try this game at night with flashlights for "Light – No Light." When "it" turns around, turn the flashlight on instead of yelling, “Red Light.”
What you need:
- chalk and pavement or a stick and dirt
- A marker (a small stone works!)
What you do:
- Draw a hopscotch course using chalk on a pavement or a stick on some dirt.
- First throw the marker into the #1 square. It must fall fully in the square without going out or touching the line.
- The goal now is to hop on every square in numerical order, excluding the one with the marker in it. On single squares, you hop on one foot. On double squares you put one foot in each square.
- When you get to top of the course, turn around and come back doing the exact same movements. You still must avoid stepping in the box with your marker in it, but you must retrieve your marker before completing the course.
- If you complete that course successfully, you may throw your marker into square #2 and begin again.
- If you step on or over any of the lines or lose your balance, you lose your turn and the next player goes.
- The person who completes all eight courses first wins!
This marbles game is called Ringer. It's a game for two players.
Download the rules! (PDF)
What you need:
- 13 "mibs" (regular-sized target marbles)
- 1 "shooter" (slightly larger marble)
- Make a circle ten feet in diameter on the ground, using sidewalk chalk on a driveway or just by drawing a circle in the dirt with a twig.
Note: For beginners, try making the circle smaller than 10 feet. The bigger the circle, the harder the game will be.
What you do:
1. To decide who goes first, the players try to shoot a marble from one end of the circle to the other. The marble that goes the farthest without leaving the circle goes first. This is called “lagging.”
2. Arrange the thirteen mibs in a plus-sign shape inside the circle.
3. First shooter: Kneel down anywhere outside the circle with the shooter in one hand and at least one knuckle of your shooting hand on the ground. (This is called “knuckling down.”) With your thumb, flick the shooter toward the mibs. The aim is to knock a mib out of the circle while keeping the shooter inside. As long as you knock out a mib and the shooter stays in the ring, you keep the mib and you can keep shooting. If you miss or the shooter goes outside the ring, it’s the other player’s turn.
4. The first player to knock out seven mibs wins the game.
Adapted from www.streetplay.com
What You Need:
How to Play:
Designate someone the kicker. This person then kicks the can as far as possible. After the can is kicked, the kicker counts to one hundred, while the other players hide. When the kicker spots someone, he calls out that person’s name and races them back to the can. If the kicker reaches the can first, the hider goes to "jail" as the game continues. If the hider kicks the can first, the hider goes free and the game starts over. Hiders can leave their hiding spot to free prisoners by kicking the can. The game is over when everyone is in jail.
What You Need: Nothing!
How to Play:
The players sit in a circle on the ground as one person walks around the outside. As the player on the outside walks, he taps each sitting person’s head and say “Duck, Duck, Duck”, until he chooses to say “Goose.” The person selected as “Goose” stands up and chases the person who selected him around the circle. If the person who selects the Goose reaches the Goose’s spot before being tagged, he wins. If the Goose tags the person that selected them before the person can sit down in the Goose’s spot, he gets their seat back, and the original person selecting Duck, Duck, Goose has to start over or they go into the stew pot in the center of the circle.
What You Need: Nothing!
How to Play:
Designate one player as the cat and one as the mouse. The rest of the players join hands in a circle with the mouse inside. The mouse must try to keep away from the cat outside the circle, but the mouse can’t stay inside the circle for more than five seconds. The players in the circle should lift their arms to let the mouse in and out of the circle as it runs from the cat. The cat can’t enter the circle, but can reach inside to “catch” the mouse by tagging him. As a result, the other players can squeeze together to keep the cat from reaching into the circle. If the cat catches the mouse, the mouse becomes the cat and a new mouse is chosen.
What You Need:
How to Play:
One player is designated first and selects a location on the basketball court from which to shoot. Every player after this player must shoot the basketball into the hoop from the chosen location. If a player misses the shot, he earns an H. At the start of each new turn, the first player chooses a new location on the court from which to shoot. During the turns, if the player misses the shot, he earns a letter until the word HORSE is spelled. The last player to spell the word HORSE wins.
What You Need: Nothing!
How to Play:
Sardines is another variation of hide and seek. In this game, one child ("It") hides while all the other kids count to 50. Everyone looks for the hider, but instead of revealing his hiding place, each player quietly hides with "It" when they find him. Soon, those who are left realize that they are looking for a hiding place where lots of people are located instead of just one person. The game ends when the final child finds all the hiders. He then becomes "It."
