Tell us your best games to play with children outdoors

[HelenMumsnet]

Afternoon all.

We're compiling some Mumsnet tips on games to play with your children outdoors. We've found some great ones already but we'd really love a few more suggestions, please.

They don't have to be fancy or organised and they don't need to involve lots of equipment - just the kind of thing you'd have fun playing together in the park of a summer's day.

Ta muchly, Mumsnet Towers

DH plays catch with the dd's, but if you drop the ball you have to 1. go down on one knee for next turn 2. down on two knees if you drop it again, 3. one hand behind back if you drop it again. If you catch it you are back to normal.

Oh and digging holes. They like digging holes. Mind you DS eats worms, he's motivated to dig holes

Also big pictures. We tape big bits of paper together on the floor, mix up some paint and let them run through it and use hands or whatever else to paint with. Then hose them down (you can only do this on a hot day).

watching the decomposition of small rodents, then collecting the bones. works best if dead rodent is covered with upturned flower pot in corner of garden not in the middle of the patio

Well, today my mindees and I made an obstacle course, mud pies, played tug of war, and british bulldog (like tag), pooh sticks (we have a small river) donkey (throwing/catching game) practised skipping, planted some seeds, water fight, frisbee, football and bug hunts.

We do a few of these games too.

Mousey84 can I be one of your mindees? I'm 41 though You sound like a brill nanny/childminder

collecting leaves and impaling them on sticks to make 'flags'

duck duck goose

bubbles

fruit salad

drawing all over the footpath with chalk

Collecting leaves and flowers and making collages, pressing them or using them to make rubbings

chase the ducks

chase the cat

chase mummy

mummy chase baby

sand/ water table

playhouse

We take a football, tennis racquets or a cricket set and we will play fo rages with these.

Our park has a row of trees and the DC's love playing in these, finding things or making dens.

We also just go and roll down the hill.

In the garden they mostly play make believe. They found some garden cames that became Bows and so they played Robin Hood.

We also love to garden, nothing big, certainly nothing fancy some seeds and a few pots.

Bug hunting, snail racing etc

ingles favourite outside game.... for the terminally lazy. even includes exercise for the dog!

Take one large back garden.
Position children (age 8 up) and dog at the end of garden.
Stand at the back door with tennis racket, tennis balls, glass of wine and magazine.
Whack ball as high and as far as you can with said racquet.
children and dog chase around like headless chickens trying to catch ball or find ball in long grass.
Aim for long grass or hedge to ensure maximum supping/reading/sunbathing time.
repeat ad infinitum or until dog collapses with heat exhaustion.

ours is usually involving a parachute, a hundred or so ball-pool balls and whatever sticks or canes they can find.
make teepee out of parachute, put bits of it on sticks and sit in it till it falls down
put balls in parachute and all hold an edge of the parachute
send all the balls to little sister who will try to catch all 100 of them (at once) failing to understand that two small hands are inadequate for this
spend quarter of an hour putting all the balls back on the parachute
crawling underneath the parachute which has balls on top of it, screeching with laughter when they fall off
trying some insane version of rounders where you try and hit a ball-thing about the size of a tennis ball with a stick . Lasts forever cos they cant do it
using the parachute laid out on the grass as a giant target and trying to throw as many balls as you can on to the yellow or red. A variation on this is child 1 trying to 'score' on blue areas at the same time as child 2 getting his on red and child 3 aiming for yellow. count number of balls on each colour to determine who wins

No insanity in my family

In our garden there is quite of lot of stick-age

stick collecting
stick piling
stick building
stick poking
stick eating
stick breaking
and of course the obligatory beating each other round the head with stick

quite a lot of 'only just avoiding windows while doing penalty shoot outs' too

swingball yes, for 5 minutes until the baby gets knocked out

cricket ditto

a certain amount of preventing toddler from eating lumps of bird poo

and bluebells in season

lately, quite a lot of watering sweetcorn and spinach

and an awful lot of trampolining.

Those are not games are they? I have fond memories of kick the can on the beach. I suspect though I too am of the benign neglect school of lazy parenting.

Ah. No. I forgot. We MUST play hide and seek with toddler and small child. For hours. Involving the same hiding place as the one you just used. Over and over again.

We mostly play the 'leave them in garden playing in the mud game whilst I do the washing up etc' game. My boys have a good time digging and moving earth in the garden.

They also like the chunky chalks for drawing on the patio.

At the park they like to play catch and DS1 especially like to chase/be chased.

Any game that involves jumping on daddy is always a winner.

More now because I got kicked off the PC

in the garden mine love paints, chalks and water to make art with either on the patio or on paper.

We have some pop up tents.these get filled with goodies (books, games etc) and the children live there for a few hours.

The best fun is usually with a giant cardboard box please it becomes so many different things over the space of a day.

Painting the fence with water and paintbrush- any size
Watering the flowers (dd (3.4) would do this all day!)
chalks
football
'hide and seek' ... but dd still thinks she is hidden if she puts her hands over her eyes...
sandpit
tent- we have a small 2 man and just have books and cushions in there... she loves it.
DS (4mo)just loves watching trees move in the breeze- quite therapeutic for mummy too!

DS is three. We like:

Rolling down hills
Flying kites
Jumping on each other's shadows
Frisbee
Throw and catch with a bean bag/ ball/ hat
Playing chase where I can never quite catch DS
'You can't get past me' - DS's game - he tries to run past me and I stop him. Keeps him entertained for ages and I don't have to run much [lazy]
T ball/ golf - put small ball on a pile of grass clippings and whack it with a baseball bat/ golf club

Daisy chains/ Dandelion crowns
Dandelion clocks
Bubbles - even better with a bubble machine
Picnics
Foraging in hedgerows
Chalking on the sidewalk

Buy a trampoline
Painting with water
Sand tray
Give them a tupperware container and tell them not to come back until they have caught creepy crawlies
Then sit back on your sun lounger and read book.

Mine love painting with water and watching it disapear.

Chalk drawings.

Hopscotch.

A washing up bowl of water to wash plastic dishes.

Swingball.

Running/scooter races.

Badminton.

Rounders-if we can get the grandparents and g.grandparents to join in

Swingball - we have family tournaments!

'Saving' woodlice by putting as many as possible in a bucket then giving them a 'wash' by drowning them all.

has NO ONE done the OLD french camping game with the two empty bottles?

ok you need
two empty plastic bottles
2 kids
a football

fill bottles with water( no lid)
postition a few metrew apart.
kids stand by one each

kid 1 rolls football towards kid 2s bottle. if it hits bottle then kid 2 has to get the ball BEFORE he can right his bottle and stop the water flowing out.

the winner is the person who keeps the fullest bottle

hours of fun

Crab/ other animal races.
Draw start and finish lines (or use something to mark the line like a jumper). Children all have to be the same animal (crab, horse, dog, slug (!)etc) and have to move like that animal to the finish line. We have staggered starts for the younger ones.

Building tents with blankets/ clothes horses etc.

watering the plants.

Picking the strawberries/rasberries/redcurrants