I don’t know about your town, but where I live, it’s already consistently pretty hot outside. So I thought I’d break out a few summer fun ideas centered around water (because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be outside much once it hits 90+ unless there’s water involved!).

Try these silly games with kids aged three to five, courtesy of Kaboose.com:

Bucket blast:
For this game, you need two or more children. Each child or team will need a bucket of water, an empty bucket and a paper cup. The first child fills the cup with water from the full bucket and runs with it to the empty bucket to pour their water into it. Both children (or teams) continue until they empty the original bucket of water and fill the second bucket. The child or team with the most water in the bucket wins. For even more fun, cut a quarter-sized hole in each cup and get the kids to plug it using their fingers or by placing it on their heads while they run to fill the bucket.

Butterfinger ball:
This one is played in the shallow end of a pool. Butter each child’s hand with suntan lotion and then wet a large beach ball, says Penny Warner, author of Splish Splash: Water Fun for Kids (Chicago Review Press). The kids throw a ball back and forth to each other and have a fun giggly time trying to hold on to it.

The site includes suggestions for water games to play with older kids, too. Also, there are always the old stand-bys of sprinklers, kiddie pools, and Slip ‘n Slides (Boy, have they ever expanded their water fun since I was a kid with the basic yellow skid-to-the-end-and-pray model!).

Posted by Sunshine.