Whether indoor or outdoor, pool parties and gatherings can be a great choice for girls. If your pool allows, there are games you can play that involve letting girls scramble to collect items floating on the top of the water or gather items that come to rest on the pool bottom. If throwing things into the water is out of the question, there are games you can play that require nothing but swimsuits.
Marco Polo
It’s not summer if you don’t hear the sound of “Marco Polo” at the pool. To play this classic game, one person is “it.” She closes her eyes and shouts “Marco.” The other players shout “Polo” in return. If “it” tags a player, then that player becomes it. The Birthday Party Ideas 4 Kids website offers a variation on the game if you want to allow players to climb out of the pool. If “it” calls “fish out of water” and someone is out of the pool, then that player becomes it. If more than one player is out of the pool, “it” chooses who will become the next “it.”
Water Tag
This game is played like land tag, but “it” uses a splash ball or large sponge to tag others. Birthday Party Ideas 4 Kids explains that whoever “it” hits becomes the next “it.”
Pool Change Drop
Depending on your budget, gather a bunch of coins and toss them into the pool and let everyone scramble to find them. The Source for Youth Ministry website notes you can do countless variations on this scramble by tossing tokens, toys, sea shells or items worth points into the pool.
Ping Pong Scramble
For this game from Birthday Party Ideas 4 Kids, each player has a designated container on the side of the pool. Players form a large circle in the pool and then someone dumps a bunch of ping pong balls into the circle. Players scramble to gather as many balls as they can and put them in their baskets. The player with the most ping pong balls wins. For a variation, mark the balls with different point values. The player with the highest total points at the end is the winner.
Spongebob Squarefort
If you want to play pool games in your back yard, give Spongebob Squarefort a try. The Source for Youth Ministry notes you first need to get two rectangular inflatable pools. Place them about 6 to 10 feet apart from each other with the long sides facing each other. Cut a bunch of cheap, yellow sponges into halves or fourths. Fill the pools and divide the sponges between them. Divide the girls into two teams standing behind or inside the pools. When the leader blows a whistle or yells “go,” the players try to toss their sponges into the other team’s pool. At the end of the designated time, the team with the fewest sponges in their pool is the winner.
Wet Sweatshirt Relay
For this game, you’ll need a very large sweatshirt for each team. Divide each team in two and have players line up at opposite ends of the pool. At the whistle, the first player on each team puts the sweatshirt on and races to the teammates on the opposite side of the pool. That player has to remove her sweatshirt and hand it to the next player in line, who dons the sweatshirt and swims to the opposite side. The Source for Youth Ministry notes the winning team is the first one to get their whole team to the opposite side of the pool from which they started.
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