Having organized games at your backyard party always makes for a good time. But how do you turn a good time into a great time? No, not just a great time. A fantastic time. The best time ever! Well it’s simple. You just add water.
I put together a list of my all time favorite backyard water games and activities. Later on in the post I’ll tell you how to play them and tell you what I have found to be the biggest hit at my family parties. So let’s get right to it.
The List:
- Water Balloon Pinata
- Butterfly Balloon toss
- Water Balloon Basket Ball
- Water Balloon Pop
- Sponge Bucket Fill
- Water Pistol Shooting Range
- Water Balloon Relay Race
- Garden Hose Limbo
- Pass the Water
- Towel Balloon Toss
- Hula Hoop Toss
- Bottle Fill
- The Cup Run
- Beach Ball Race
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To this day my 31 year old daughters childhood friends will talk about the fun birthday parties she always had in the backyard. There was the one where we played Silly String the Birthday Girl and the one that had the Whipped Cream Relay Race. But the most fondly remembered one, is the one they simply call “The Water Party”. Over the years the water party has been repeated at family gatherings, barbecues and birthday parties and has always been a huge hit.
If you are lucky enough to have a child born in the summer, you should take full advantage of the warm air and sunshine and throw them a Splishy, Splashy, Wet and Wacky Backyard Birthday Bash. Feel free to put that on the invitations.
The Planning
Send out invitations that evoke sunshine and happiness. Tell folks to wear their bathing suit and flip flops and let them know to bring a towel. They will get wet.
Party Game Supplies:
- Plenty of water balloons. Plenty!
- Super soakers*
- Water pistols*
- Hula Hoops
- Water noodles and rings
- String
- Sponges
- Hair ties
- Big plastic cups
- Small plastic cups
- Plastic trays
- Empty 2 litre soda bottles
- ping pong balls
- Butterfly nets
- Large towels
- Large buckets or kiddie pools
- Inflatable beach balls
- Prizes
*For an inexpensive alternative, you can pick up spray bottles at the local dollar store. Just be sure they have a stream setting on the nozzle.
Too ensure everything goes smoothly, on the day of the party fill the water balloons, super soakers and water pistols before your guests arrive. You should also set up the games so they are ready when you are. Use the water noodles to outline courses or denote start and finish lines. Deciding in advance what order you want to do the different games and activities in is also a good idea.
Playing The Games
Water Balloon Pinata: Fill large water balloons up with water. You can use the small ones if you can’t find large ones. Suspend them one at a time by a string from a tree limb as you would with the candy filled kind. Line everyone up and blind fold the first person and have them hit with a stick or plastic bat. Count how many swings it took for them to break it. Hang a new balloon and repeat with each person. The winner is the person that breaks it in the least amount of swings.
Butterfly Balloon Toss: Separate guests into pairs. Then line them up in two lines, facing each other, separated by about 4 feet, less if they are young children. Give each person in one line a butterfly net and each person in the other line a water balloon. Have the people with the balloons toss them and the people with the nets catch them in the net. If your balloon breaks, or is not caught, your team is out. Then have each person take a step back and repeat the process. The winners are the last team to have not missed or broken their balloon.
Water Balloon Basketball: Have each person choose a partner and give one person a water balloon and the other person either a hula hoop for young kids or a water noodle ring for older kids. Facing each other a few feet apart have the person with the balloon try to make a basket. If you don’t make a basket your team is out. Each successful pair then takes a step back and goes again, repeating the process until there is only one team left and they are declared the winners.
Water Balloon Pop: There are several ways to play this classic game. My family enjoy this one the most. Have each person choose a partner. Standing back to back , place a water balloon between them at the buttocks. The partners need to try to pop the balloon without it falling to the ground. It is much harder than it sounds. The winners are the first duo to pop their balloon.
Sponge Bucket Fill: Using four buckets, fill two with water and leave two empty. Place the two buckets with water next to each other and place the two empty buckets about 20 feet across from them. This game is played as a team relay or as an individual event. The first player plunges the sponge into the full bucket, then runs across the field, with the sponge in his head, to the empty bucket and wrings the sponge out into it. He then runs back and repeats the process or hands the sponge off if you chose to play a relay. The goal is to fill the bucket to the designated mark. The winner is the person or team to reach the mark first.
Water Pistol Shooting Range: On a picnic table build three or four pyramids using six plastic cups. Leave about 12 inches between pyramids. The goal is to knock down all the cups using the water pistol, so set the distance the players stand, based on the range of the water pistols. Have the winners of each round play off against each other until an overall winner is declared.
Water Balloon Relay Race: This is a simple relay race using a water balloon as the baton. You can make it more challenging by having it be a relay obstacle course instead. The winner being the first team to cross the finish line without dropping or popping their water balloon.
Garden Hose Limbo: This is played exactly like traditional Limbo only the limbo stick is replaced by a stream of water from the hose. The winner is the person that is able to bend the lowest under the limbo spray.
Pass the Water: Separate the party into two teams and line them up next to each other. In front of each line have a full bucket of water. Give each player an empty large plastic cup. The first person in each line will fill their cup in the bucket, then bringing the cup up over their head, without turning around, they will dump their cup of water into the cup of the person behind them. That person will then dump whatever amount of water they were able to catch into the cup of the persons behind them in the same over the head manner. The goal is to fill the last person in lines cup to the designated mark. The first team to do so wins. This game is best played with lines no longer than five or six people long. If you have a large party you should form several lines instead of two.
Towel Balloon Toss: Have your guests choose a partner. Give each pair a towel and a water balloon. Holding the towel spread out between them with the water balloon in the center of the towel, the teams will use the towel to toss the balloon in the air and catch it back in the towel. The winner is the last team to still have an unpopped, undropped balloon on their towel.
Another fun version of this game is to have two people hold the towel and have a third person toss the balloon to them. They must catch the balloon in the towel and toss it back using the towel. The winner is the last group to have and unbroken, undropped balloon.
Hula Hoop Toss: This game can be a team game or an individual one. Lay four or five hula hoops out on the ground, in a straight line, about two feet apart from each other. Mark a foul line on the ground a good distance away. The player must stand at the line and toss a water balloon into the hoops. The winner is the person who can toss the balloon the farthest, have it land in a hoop, and not break.
A second version of this game can be played by hanging the hula hoops in a row from a tree branch, forming a tunnel of sorts. Have a player at each end of the hoop tunnel and have them toss the balloon through the hoops to each other. The winners are the team that had the most tosses caught with no breaks or drops.
Bottle Fill: This game uses empty two liter soda bottles. Remove the label and cut a 2 inch hole mid way up the soda bottle. Place a ping pong ball in the empty bottle. Divide your players into teams of two, giving one player the bottle and the other player a super soaker or water pistol. Standing several feet away from each other, have the people with the bottles place them on their head and hold it there. The people with the super soakers need to aim for the opening in the bottle and shoot water into it. The winners are the first team to get the ping pong ball to rise to the opening and fall out of the bottle.
The Cup Run: This game is a relay game. Break your party into two groups. Line them up in two rows on each end of the course. Fill a plastic tray with small plastic cups filled with water and give one to the first person on each team. The goal is to run across the field with the full tray and hand it off to the next person in the relay and continue handing it off until each player has had a turn. The winners are the team with the most amount of standing cups still left in their tray.
Beach Ball Race: Place two large beach balls on the ground and give two players each a super soaker. The goal of this game is to propel the beach ball to the designated finish line first using the super soaker to get it there. If you have enough beach balls you can do more than two at a time and you can even turn this game into a relay handing off the super soaker to each teammate. The winners being the team or individual to have their beach ball cross the finish line first.
Quick and Easy Craft
Whenever we throw a party at my house, I like to have an easy craft for the kids to make. They really enjoy doing it and they also get to have something to take with home with them. To keep with the water theme I have them make a sponge ball.
This craft requires three sponges, each cut into three even strips, and one hair tie or rubber band. You can use different color sponges to make a colorful ball. To make the ball you simple put the strips back together as if they were still one sponge and then stack the other strips on top, three high and three across. Take the hair tie and wrap it tightly around the sponge stack. Then fan out the pieces of sponge that stick out. That’s it, you now have a sponge ball.
The Biggest Hit
When the kids were toddlers until about the first grade, we would get a rectangle kiddie pool and place the Little Tykes ladder (that little red and blue one) half in and half out of the pool, to create our own little water slide. Then when my eldest daughter turned 6, she asked for an inflatable water slide for her birthday and that was the end of the homemade water slide. We spent $237 (I remember because I thought we were crazy to do so, that was a lot of money 25 years ago) and got this huge thing that turned out to be the biggest hit ever.
My Kids used it practically everyday that summer. We took it with us whenever we went somewhere that had water and electric. Block parties, and birthday parties, Labor Day and Memorial Day Parties, you name it, we brought it there. I’m pretty sure we got invited to parties we may not have been because we had the water slide. That slide lasted us through three summers and I definitely got my $237 worth.
If your kids love to get wet and can stand the cold, (cause let me tell you, that water is cold) an inflatable water slide is well worth the cost. There are even smaller toddler sized inflatables for the little ones so they don’t get left out of the fun.
