A couple of years ago we had a 10 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. I felt guilty for our son in the early years because our life revolved around feedings, nap times, and diapers. He never complained and though we had a wide gap between them, I was set to find something we could all do…or at least be present at together. This is when I decided to start a new tradition for our family, FAM BAM SUMMER SLAM or family olympics. It has since progressed into summer olympics and WINTER JAM a gingerbread house decorating competition and something we all look forward to.
When planning the yard olympics there were a few things that were important to me… 1. All ages could participate. 2. Adults and kids both actively participate (Often when we get together with other families the kids go in one direction and the adults another. This keeps us together and it’s “team building” for our immediate family) 3. I wanted to start a tradition before our tween becomes a teen that is “too cool” to hang out with his mom, dad, and little sister. 4. It’s also a way to get together with our brothers, and friends that are like family.
My thought was if we start a super fun tradition now, our kids will want to continue to come back even when they grow up, they won’t mind bringing home boyfriends/girlfriends over through the teen years, and then when they have kids of their own we can expect them to show up. Basically, I wanted to create something that everyone knows will be loads of fun and looks forward to all year long.
Setting this up can be a lot of work to put together and organize but I promise you it is worth it! We have two years of games under our belt and are getting ready to host year number three now.
Tips for planning:
- Send out an invite. I suggest group text or a Facebook event so you can keep everyone up to date if they need to bring any supplies and guests can coordinate if they have additional on hand. Make sure everyone is aware ahead of time they may get wet or messy.
- Decide what games you want to play. Be sure to consider how old your participants are, how many “heats” you will have (moms, dads, bigs, littles, etc), how you will score the event, etc.
- Make a list of materials you need to order or purchase. If you plan to have prizes, don’t forget to order those too!
- Make a list of rules. In the beginning I tried to tell everyone the rules right before the game started, but even though I prep for weeks ahead of time, I’m always frantic the day of the event. The kids are always anxious to learn about the games and when I post the rules in the Facebook event or at the scoreboard, it will save the headache of having to answer questions during set-up or yelling over a large group of people.
- Let someone else know how you hope everything to run before your event. They can help
delegate and take some of the pressure off of you. - Create a scoreboard that everyone can look at. I’ve kept an excel spreadsheet one year and a poster the other. Everyone always wants to know their score (we’re really competitive!) so the poster works best for us. Give one or two of the older kids the job of writing down scores!
- Get an inexpensive megaphone like this. You can use it to signal the beginning or end of a game or give directions to the group. Plus everyone loves it and wants a turn!
- You’ll need some cones or spray paint to mark out finish/start lines or a playing field.
- Have a theme or assign team colors. We hold our event the weekend before the Fourth of July so we have everyone wear their craziest and most patriotic gear, but you could have families in team t-shirts or any other theme! (themes and team colors are not required but add an extra level of fun!)
- Before you get started take a group photo of everyone! Set a timer so everyone can be included, we love looking back at them and if we do it at the beginning, no one gets left out!
We always grill burgers and hot dogs and ask each family to bring a side to share along with drinks for their family. You’ll be busy, so keep it simple! Our families have toddlers and tweens so we usually have a baby pool set up for the toddlers and let them play on our swing set to be entertained while the big kids play.
Some of the games we have played:
My apologies for not having more “how to” photos. I had to dig into my archives!
Year 1
Potato Sack Races
A traditional potato sack race! Line everyone up and have them hop across your field. I have been surprised at how well our sacks held up. We’ve used them two years in a row and they are still going strong!
Dizzy Doughnuts
First map out a course for participants to run. When the whistle blows, have them place their forehead on one end of the bat, spin around it 10 times, then run the course. We ran in a giant circle across the yard and around our trampoline, that’s why we were “doing doughnuts”. We had to count off spins for the kids. They all tried to cheat!
Javelin Rings
Find $.99 Fun Noodles at your Wal-Mart or Dollar General store. You’ll need the ones with a hollow core. Roll a small lightweight piece of cardstock or cardboard into a tube and insert into one end, form a ring with the noodle, until it connects to the other end of the cardstock and insert to connect the two ends together. Wrap the ends with duct tape to hold in place. Repeat for as many rings as you would like, we did five like the olympic rings. You can tape them into whatever pattern you would like. Drive to T-posts into the ground and tape or use wire to attach your rings to two T-posts.
For your “Javelin” you’ll want to put some weight into the front end of the noodle so you can toss it. We used small rocks and duct tape to form a cone on the ends. (sorry, I didn’t take any photos!) Paint the grass or set up cones to show the “throw line”. You can designate each ring worth a different point value or the most rings wins.
Junk in the Trunk This is best described with a video! Collect empty kleenex boxes (or buy kleenex and empty the boxes, keeping the tissue for winter!) Use a razorblade to cut slits through sides of the base of the box so you can slide a belt or string through. Fill the boxes with an equal number of ping pong balls, each participant puts on the belt with the box of balls on their booty. When you say go, shake and jump, do whatever you can to get the balls out before anyone else!
Sponge Race
Each team will need two buckets and a large carwash sponge. Fill one bucket with water and place at one end of the field, place the empty bucket straight across the field. Each team will relay with the sponge to transfer as much water as possible to the empty bucket. You can go until your bucket is full but we had 5 gallon buckets so we went for three minutes, measuring who had the most water at the end. You’ll need something to measure the water levels. We used paint stirring sticks that you can get for free from the hardware store. They were easy to see and mark the different levels for each team.
Year 2
Potato Sack Races – Repeat from first year
Tipsy Waiter
Each team will need a rectangular cookie sheet, 6-8 solo cups, a bat, and two buckets. each team will place one empty bucket across the field. At the starting line one of the players will spin around the bat 8 times, then try to carry a tray full of cups full of water to the opposite side of the yard to dump into their bucket. Play for a set amount of time or fill line marked on your bucket.
Hot Hats
You will need top hats, 2 solo cups per team, duct tape, and a bucket of water for this game. Luckily we ordered them early because the first set I bought were half the cost but they were only about 2 inches tall! Ha! Tape a cup onto the top of each hat. You’ll need to designate one player lay on the ground with an empty cup on their tummy. Remaining team members will take turns filling their cups then running to the laying team member. Runner must stay in a standing position while pouring water from their hat to the laying player’s cup. Runner must keep the hat on their head and the laying player cannot lift their cup. Make sure you have someone that doesn’t mind getting wet holding the cup!
Hose Head
For this game you will need 1-2 cases of bottled water, a pair of pantyhose or old dance tights, and a baseball or tennis ball for each team.
This game is played in “heats”. We split up moms, dads, bigs, and littles. Evenly space 4-6 bottles in a line across the field for each team. The participating team member will put a ball in one of the hose legs, place the waist over their head, and tie or tuck the remaining leg out of the way. When the siren blows, run to the first water bottle and swing your head to sway the ball to knock down the bottle of water. No hands or feet allowed! First to knock down all of their bottles and cross the finish wins!
Obstacle Course
You can make whatever type of obstacle course you like using whatever you have! Here are some ideas that we used.
Baby pool full of shaving cream to find our team “flag”. We paint the end of paint stir sticks gold, silver, bronze, red, white, and blue for each team. Dig through the shaving cream to find your team color then take off! I think we used 4 cans of shaving cream to fill our pool and definitely could have used more! Try the Dollar Store for inexpensive shaving cream.
Ladder Run – Run through the rings of a ladder.
Wagon Weave – drive 10-12 T-posts in a zig zag pattern. Runners must drag wagon in and out of the posts. You can place lightweight playground balls in the wagon to force the runner to slow down. We tried balloons but they flew out and popped. ?
Wacky Web – Weave yarn back and forth between two trees or T-posts that runner must climb through. Our web should have gone a bit closer to the ground. Skinny minnies were rolling right under with no problems!
Target Practice – Cut a small hole in the bottom of a solo cup and string with a long piece of yarn through it. Tie the string between two posts or poles with one end slightly higher. Use a high power water pistol to shoot the cup to the opposite end of the string.
Bubble Tunnel – Set up 2-3 large banquet tables, edge to edge. Blow up a LOT of balloons. I mean a LOT. We probably had 50-60 but really could have used more. Affix them to the table however you can find that works. I threaded a super long piece of yarn through a needle and then through the base of the balloon so I could slide them closer/further apart. We stuffed them into trash bags to transport outside. It was windy and even with weights they kept blowing away and popping. If you are more prepared you could do this in your garage and simultaneously move the tables into place but I didn’t anticipate them blowing away. I was trying to set up while everyone was eating lunch so I basically was the entertainment. They laughed watching me chase balloons and scream every time one popped. Everything looks prettier and easier on Pinterest. Climb under the table as fast as you can!
Triple Jump – Place three (or more) coolers to jump over. & Cornhole / Bean Bag Toss – One player must make three bags to finish the game.
At the end of the games we tally up all of the scores and hand out tiny trophies to each family. We paint them Gold, Silver, Bronze, Red, Blue, and White for the order of placing. The following year each family “color” is the color they placed. Sometimes we use placing for what order teams will go like this past year the Gold team got to choose what order each family completed the obstacle course.
You’ll have games that you love and others that are kind of flops. Each year you can add onto the materials you purchase and change the rules to better fit the age of your participants.
Comment below or on our Facebook page to let us know how your competition goes!!
