Fun on the Fourth of July

This 4th of July is going to be a scorcher, but that doesn’t mean you should hide in your air-conditioned house.  Here are some fun things to do outside that will cool you and your family off!

1. Squirt Gun Wars

Every man for himself.  There is basically no point to this game, but you get to run around and shoot other people with water.

2. Dodgeball

Break into two teams and establish a middle line that separates the territory.  Place 20 water balloons on the middle line, and on “go” each team races to the line from the back of their territory to collect as many balloons as possible.  If you get hit by a water balloon when you are out, but if you catch the water balloon then the person who threw it is out.  Note—the water balloon must not break, so attempt to catch it at your own risk!  If your nail snags it, you’re out of luck.

3. Water Balloon Toss

This is the friendly water balloon game.  Break up into pairs and face your partner.  All of the teams stand side by side in two lines that are facing each other-at first only two feet apart.  The players in Line 1 toss the ball to their respective partners in Line 2.  Then Line 2 takes one large step back.  They toss the balloon back to Line 1.  Line 1 steps back and tosses the balloon to Line 2.  This ritual continues until the partners are so far apart that balloons start to break due to bad throws and harsh catches.  The team that keeps their balloon alive the longest wins!

4. Ice Cube Tag

Whoever is “it” carries around an extra-large ice cube and tries to stick it down the back of one of the runners’ shirts.  Once the cube infiltrates the shirt, the person with the ice cube in his or her shirt is now “it” and must carry around the ice cube until he or she successfully lodge it into another person’s shirt-back.  This continues until the ice cube melts—whoever is “it” when the ice cube melts lose.

5. Desert-Desert-Waterfall

This is a variation of Duck-Duck-Goose.  The “Weatherman” walks around the circle, and rather than saying “Duck” or “Goose”, he or she says “Desert” or “Waterfall”.   As the Weatherman says, Waterfall, he or she dumps a cup of water on the person’s head, and the game carries on the same way as Duck-Duck-Goose.

Happy 4th of July!