Fun Water Games to Play in the Hot Summer Heat!

You’re working on your “Prepare for Summer Vacation” list, right? We thought so, and you’re in the right place! Today’s summer vacation preparedness topic is Bored Tweens and Teens and How to Get Them Out of the House and into the Fresh Air and Sunshine.

The best way to convince tweens and teens to do pretty much anything is by offering them either food or entertainment, and because we specialize in entertainment over food, we’ll be working from our experience.

Lovingly crafted for all our loyal readers who are big time fans of water games, water sports, water parks or water…melons(?), our list of fun games to play in the hot summer heat is carefully curated and guaranteed to do the trick when it’s way too dang warm out to do anything except cool off!

DIY Slip ’n Slide

Hey 90s kids, are you hearing the song from the commercial in your head right now? Yeah, us neither. Add a little nostalgia to the summer and show your kids what we did back in the days before everything in the whole world was on a screen in our hands!

You can still get the official branded version of this water game that literally half the people we all knew somehow had in the 80s and 90s, but it’s also super simple to make your own! Just stretch out a thick plastic tablecloth or a plastic tarp (make sure it’s clean and in good condition) and pin it to the lawn with tent spikes, horseshoe stakes, or something similar. Next, hose it down. Then, set up your lawn sprinkler so that the plastic stays wet. Last step: slide!

Water Balloon Freeze Tag

Speaking of 90s nostalgia, do you remember freeze tag? We’ve watered this version up to help everyone cool down in the hot summer heat! All you need to get started is a big ol’ cooler or bucket full of filled water balloons—you can even store them with ice if you want to add extra “freeze” to your game of Freeze Tag.

Put the container of water balloons in the center of the yard with each player standing 10-15 paces away from it. 

1. Each player starts with one water balloon

2. Count down from five and the game begins

3. If you get hit with a water balloon, freeze in place

4. To get unfrozen, another player high-fives you

5. The goal is to be the last player who’s not frozen

6. The fun comes from making deals with other players, forming alliances, and betraying those alliances to win the game—all in good fun of course!

Sports: Just Add Water

Most any sport can be adapted to be played in the pool, depending on how big of a pool you have access to. (Dear All Our Friends with Pools: Please have more pool parties!) 

Set up (or have someone hold) a hoop on each side to play water basketball. Improvise some goal posts or goal nets for water football, water soccer, water hockey, or water polo. Play water baseball by marking four corners for bases and getting a bat and a ball. Stretch a line across the center of the pool and you can play water volleyball, water tennis, water badminton—or water limbo!

Sprinkler Limbo

Speaking of limbo, if you have a sprinkler that goes back and forth or side to side, challenge your kids to see who can make it under the sprinkler the most times without getting hit by the water! 

Start with the familiar limbo technique of walking forwards while bending backwards and then increase the difficulty of the challenge by adding more conditions.

1. One leg only (let them choose or dealer’s choice!)

2. Backwards

3. Crab-walking

4. Crawling

5. Hands behind your back

6. With a jump rope

7. With a hula hoop

8. While holding hands with another player

Water Balloon Toss

Water balloons again? Why not?!

Go get the leftover water balloons and see who can throw the most successful throws and catch the most successful catches. What’s a success? A success is any time the balloon doesn’t break.

Standard instructions apply: This game works in pairs. Each pair takes turns tossing a water balloon back and forth. Count how many successful throws and catches each person can get. Do certain people seem to work better together? Do certain people seem to need more practice working together? Are you not interested in overthinking and just want to throw water balloons at each other? That’s fine, too!

Backyard Water Park

Looking for a fun family activity you can all do together? Create and build your own waterpark! This one’s a bit of a process, so it’s best saved for a special occasion like a birthday party or even just for a day you want to spend on a family project with a fun result!

1. Decide on a name for your family waterpark

2. Have your kids draw the mascot

3. Set up 2-4 different activities, depending on how many people will be there

4. Use any of the above activities or choose your own!

5. Prepare delicious waterpark treats

6. Watermelon is the forever iconic and best summer food. We predict it will be very popular this summer, because it is perfect.

7. Grand opening!

Tip: What Should We Do for 30 Minutes After Eating?

Whatever you want—including going back into the water! Needing to wait for 30 minutes after eating before going back into the water for safety is actually a myth. We know, we were shocked too!

But since you asked, we recommend the best out-of-water-game to play in the hot summer heat: cornhole! That’s right, this is the summer you finally treat yourself to your very own custom cornhole board from Cornhole Stop. All you have to do is submit a request, and one of our digital artists will bring your design to life.

With all these fun water games to try out, that’s your cool-off routine for the dog days of summer sorted out early! That means all you need to do is order any necessary supplies online, then cross it off your “Prepare for Summer Vacation” list and move on to the next item on the list: ordering your custom cornhole board! #cornholestop #cornholegame