Children's Outdoor Summer Games

Summer offers children opportunities for free, unstructured play that the American Academy of Pediatrics says are essential for child development. But parents have a role to play too, in participating along with their children and in offering ideas and resources for more structured children's games. Provide your children with a mixture of structured and unstructured playtime to give them the best of both worlds.

Water Games

Playing in and around the water is a quintessential part of summer games. Organize a game of tag using squirts from water pistols as the tagging method. Give your children water balloons for special treats now and then and organize a game of pairs, seeing who can toss their balloons back and forth the longest without breaking them.

Pool games are timeless favorites, too. Teach your children the tag game called Marco Polo. One one person with eyes closed says "Marco" and waits for the other children to say "Polo" in order to locate someone to tag.

Chalk Games

Using chalk for hopscotch or other games gives children fun three ways---first they can draw the hopscotch squares, then play the game and finally wash the sidewalk or patio down with a hose. You'll find international hopscotch shapes from around the world in library books. Let your children exercise their creativity and imagination by creating their own hopscotch shapes as well. Simple games of tic-tac-toe or hangman are also fun when your children can draw them on the sidewalk.

Wide Games

Wide games are those that have a large number of players and that make use of wide spaces, such as the entire yard, a large ball field or an expanse of sandy beach. Use your yard for games of red rover and hide-and-seek, or teach your children variations on tag. In blob tag, the tagger becomes a twosome with the person tagged; these two become a threesome when they tag another child, and so on until finally a large blob of taggers hold hands to chase those still untagged.

In tunnel tag, a child freezes when tagged and is unfrozen by another player who crawls between her legs. In band-aid tag, a child gets three tags before going out---at the first tag, he places a hand on his body to "band-aid" the spot where he was tagged; at the second tag, the other hand goes over the new spot; and on the third tag he's out.

According to Amy Wall, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Family Games," sardines is hide-and-seek "in reverse." One child hides while all the rest close their eyes and count, then seek the hider. When one of the seekers finds the hider, she hides with that child. The hiding space will become more and more crowded until the last seeker finds the hiding space---usually, Wall says, because the hiders are giggling.