Big Group Fun Archives - Page 5 of 7

End of Summer Neighborhood Block Party

It’s time to bring back the neighborhood block party to celebrate the end of summer! Invite everyone in your neighborhood by taping flyers to the doors of every house.

You can keep your party simple: outdoor BBQ and yard games. That’s really all you need for a good block party. However, if you want to spice it up even more, try adding activities like a neighborhood triathlon, road relay, and an outdoor movie.

The trick to throwing a block party is recruiting lots of help. You’ll need to ask lots of people to share their yards for the evening games and movie. In our case, there are three houses along the street that don’t have fences, so they share a giant combined backyard. This is a great location for our block party

Potluck Dinner

We set up grills and tables in the driveway for the potluck dinner. Families are invited to bring their own meat/veggies to grill and something to share. Our family provides the paper plates, utensils, cups, and water. Everyone brings chairs and blankets.

Yard Games

We use the large backyard for yard games like soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, flag football, kickball and dodge ball. Set up games like Kubb, lawn darts, and volleyball in other yards. We have some lazer tag guns that have also been used at block parties. Use them if you have them!

Road Relay

We sent one of our “take charge” moms around the party to recruit people to compete in our Road Relay. She successfully recruited seven teams. Each team had 5-6 people. The teams had to compete in a relay down the entire street and then back, completing all kinds of challenges. They started at House #1 with the first challenge. One member of the team jump roped from the first house to the second house. Then another teammate took over and completed the next challenge. There was a challenge at each house. We used chalk to mark start and finish lines on the sidewalk for certain challenges. We set up chairs and equipment as needed. Some challenges were individual tasks but others used multiple people or the whole team. People just had to take turns. Our course took about 20 minutes for one team to complete.

Challenges

Jump Rope
Hula Hoop 10 consecutive rotations
2-man carry
Eat a bowl of cereal
Shoot right & left lay ups and a free throw (make 3 baskets)
Walk with a cotton ball on a spoon (If you drop it, you must return to start.)
Knock down a kubb (8”block) with a wooden dowel from 20’
Tricycle ride
Walk with a tennis ball between knees
Long division problem on whiteboard
Sled Ride- Carry one teammate on a sled (Don’t drag them!)
Scooter ride
Human wheelbarrow race
10 push-ups
Steamroller the whole team
Potato sack race to the finish line

Mini Triathlon

If you’d like to add a mini triathlon to your neighborhood block party, you could hold it earlier in the day. Here’s the link for instructions to organize your own neighborhood kids triathlon: Neighborhood Mini Triathlon

Outdoor Movie

Another family offered their backyard for an outdoor movie after sunset. This was nice because they had the projector and screen all set up when we arrived. There was no conflict with games, dinner, or relays to prevent them from setting up early. People could bring their own chairs, pillows, popcorn, and Junior Mints.

Find more ideas to make you neighborhood a great place to live HERE.

Box Bash

My son wanted a Box Party for his 12th birthday. What is a Box Party, you ask? I didn’t know either– but we had one! It was one of the simplest parties we’ve ever had and also one of the most fun. It was especially great because we had a large group of children ages 5-74 and they all liked it (kindergartners and grandpas included). We had planned to have this party in our backyard, but it rained so we moved our boxes to our church gymnasium. This would never have worked inside our house.

Preparation
We started collecting boxes a month before the party. We asked a few neighbors and aunts to call us if they were throwing out any boxes. I stopped at a local furniture store and asked for large boxes. We also asked the guests to each bring two shoe boxes. Most of them did. After the party, we took them all to a recycling center.
Boxes
Invitation
We pasted the invitations on pieces of torn-up cereal boxes. Classy, eh?

Boxtacular Activities

Steal the Box
As the guests arrived, we assigned them a team and number to play “Steal the Box”, which was just Steal the Bacon with a small box.

Steal the box game

Teams
After the first game, we divided the group into two teams- the mustaches vs. the goatees. We drew facial hair on all the kids with a washable marker. Since our son was turning twelve (becoming a man in some cultures), we thought it fitting to throw in a little facial hair.

Box Relays

Our two teams competed in several box-themed relays.

Pass the Box
The teams sat in a line. Then they were challenged to pass a box using only their feet from one end of their line to the other and back again.

Box Push
The guests were required to push (or hit with their hands) a box across the gym and back. No kicking allowed!

Box Push

Coffin Race
Each team used a large box as a coffin and carried three of their teammates (one at a time) halfway across the gym and back. This was a bit dangerous- as the boxes started falling apart, but luckily no one was injured.

Coffin Race

Kleenex Pull
I bought two of the smallest boxes of Kleenexes I could find (60 tissues). The teams stood behind a line about 20 feet from a table with the Kleenex boxes. They had to take turns running to the boxes, pulling out one tissue, then running back to tag the next person. I should have taken out half of the tissues because this took a long time. If they pulled out more than one tissue, they had to spin around five times for each extra tissue before they could run back to their team. I think 12-15 tissues in the box would be about right.

Kleenex Pull

Box Skits
I put a bunch of random costumes and props in four boxes. Each box was different. We split each team in two so we would have four groups. They were given fifteen minutes to make up a skit. Then they performed them for the group. This might be a hard activity for smaller kids, but it was perfect for my pre-teen group.

Skits in a box

Box Battle
This was my favorite part of the party. Each team built a fortress of boxes, then we had a battle with Nerf guns and small playground balls. The kids were so creative. They had all kinds of hiding places in their forts and made lots of cool shields to protect themselves. Here’s a photo of one such shield:

Box Shield

Box Battle

Box Soccer
We actually played this game in the middle of the party– but it should have been our last event. The kids destroyed a lot of the boxes during this game. We required every player to wear one box as a shoe while they played a game of soccer. The soccer ball was a softer playground ball, but the boxes had to be duct taped to the kids’ feet to stay on. This was really fun but required a lot of duct tape. Here’s a photo of the box shoes:

Box shoes

box soccer

Birthday Treats
We served ice cream sundaes for our party treat. How easy is that? If you want to be more creative, I’m sure you could find some boxed desserts.

Mini Golf Party

My seven-year-old son wanted to go miniature golfing for his birthday, but he didn’t want to leave our house to do it. He wanted to build an 18-hole miniature golf course in our yard. -So, we did! Afterward, I thought this would be a fun party with several families. You could have a pile of supplies and let each family build three holes.

Invitation

Here’s the simple invitation we sent to all of his golfing buddies:

Golf Clubs/Balls/Tees/Scorecards

As the guests arrived, they checked in at the club house and received their scorecard, ball, and putter. We borrowed putters from lots of neighbors. Many of the kids were able to bring a putter from home. In the end, a couple of kids used random irons. That worked out just fine. I purchased a box of golf balls and tees. You can find these online or at any sporting goods store. I printed my own score cards and gave each foursome one card and a pencil. Here’s the scorecard with the rules printed beneath. Mini Golf Scorecard

The Golf Course

Dividing the Yard into 18 Holes

I bought four rolls of brightly colored plastic marking tape at Harbor Freight & Tools. They use this tape (which is not sticky) to mark off areas during construction projects. I used this tape to divide both the front and back yards into 18 sections. I used 3-inch-long nails to pin the ends of the tape into the grass. These were our 18 holes. Most holes were long rectangular sections, but a few were triangles. In each section, I stuck a flag with the number of the hole. This helped our golfers know where to go next and where to mark their score. I made the flags with dowels and paper. You could also use sprinkler flags.

Building the Holes

We found that the best thing for the actual holes were large 24 oz. paper cups. We laid them on their side and stuck a nail inside and through the cup into the ground to hold it in place.

We used all kinds of stuff to create the obstacles leading up to our holes. Here are some of our ideas:

PVC or dryer vent pipe for tunnels

Multiple 2 X 4’s, rocks, and bricks made great tools for building obstacles.

A castle made from a cardboard box with a hole through the middle (the doorway).

A ramp that drops into a toddler’s potty. (The kids thought that was hilarious.)

Weave the ball around a bunch of boots or shoes.

Make an animal face with a hole for the mouth.

We built a wooden ramp up and over a small kiddie pool—water hazard!

Plastic rain gutters make great ramps and slides.

Boxes- Oh what you can do with boxes! Ooh- and plastic crates or bins are great too.

Tree branches are challenging to hit a ball through.

Tires are great obstacles.

Orange cones (We have them for soccer drills.)

2 X 4’s set at different angles are fun because balls bounce off them and go a different way.

Toys! You can incorporate any cool toy buildings into your course. Think Little People, Legos, blocks, etc.

You can also use a lot of other toys. We used our big stuffed alligator and plastic snakes for a fun swampy hole.

We used a bicycle right in the middle of a hole. They had to hit the ball between the wheels to get through to the hole.

Treats/Cake

We served golf ball cake pops- which were donut holes on a stick, dipped in white chocolate, and sprinkled with white nonpareils (sprinkles).

The birthday cake was frosted with chocolate icing, then sprinkled with green colored coconut (grass) and white Sixlets that looked like tiny golf balls. I wrote the birthday boy’s name with red golf tees and stuck a flag made from a bamboo skewer with a 7 (the birthday boy’s age) written on it. We saved the cake to eat after dinner and gave the kids cupcakes. The cupcakes were frosted, sprinkled with the coconut grass, and had a large white gumball on top. You can kind of see them on the far right side of the photo above. Super easy and super cute!