Free Fun out back

Back to school is right around the corner. Are the kids working your nerves? Are you looking for ways to entertain them, wear them out, get them outside outta your hair? Well I found some fun things to do with my crew that didn't cost a dime and kept the kids outside playing for hours! Followed by nice long naps from 7 year old video dude, 11 year old sassy gal and 20 month old Baby DIVA!! Which is precisely why I now have the time to blog about this! HA!


I rummaged around in the garage and found 3 buckets, 2 hula hoops, some rags, some twine, and some unused balloons. Hmmm???

I took two rags and rolled one into a ball, wrapped the other around the ball and secured with twine. I made 2 of these, one for each big kid. Then I filled the balloons with water, secretly of course. I let the kids watch an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba and I headed out to the backyard. I laid one hula hoop on each side of the yard, however within tossing distance for the kids. In each hoop I placed a bucket full of water and a rag thing. The water balloons were stashed away in a secret place.


Yo Gabba Gabba ended and the kids were enlightened to the fact that no more tv would grace their eyes the rest of the day. 911 was almost contacted, but luckily the kids managed and came outside. Each big kid was asked to stand inside of the hula hoop. I then let them "play".

A simple game of toss the rag into the bucket soon opened the door for a multitude of creative, use your imagination children's games all around the backyard. The kids, amazingly, had a blast for many hours just filling up buckets with water and tossing them on one another. No TV. No video games. WOW! Imagine that.

I did engage them in one fun activity. I filled up some water balloons. Then I had the two big kids stand back to back and I placed a very full water balloon between them. They had to work together and move around the backyard obstacle course without dropping or breaking the water balloon. They did great. And I must say it was awesome watching them try and work together! Other than me initiating a little here or there, the kids took off and invented all sorts of games themselves with the items we just had stashed in the garage! Free fun Rocks!

And Pink Haired Momma enjoyed the lovely nap time that followed, by ALL!