Backyard Barbecue Fun and Games

Waiting for the barbecue to fire up and the kids getting antsy? Hold off the munchies and get some in some physical activity, too, with these fun backyard games.

Crab Relay: Remember doing the crab walk as a kid? This game involves a crab-walking relay race. With two teams playing, the first person on each team sits on the ground and raises up his or her body using their hands and feet, with the stomach facing up. At the go signal, the two “crabs” scuttle forward to a designated spot, and then return to the team, to be replaced by the next player who crab walks.

Banyoka: This game came from Zambia, Africa. Sit on the ground, one person sitting in back of the next. Place your hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you, creating a chain. Then, as a snake would, move through the grass by swaying back and forth. The "snake" can slither around bushes and over small hills. The longer the snake, the more fun it is maneuvering around obstacles. If you have enough players, turn it into a relay race.

Math Toss: This one has the added benefit of helping with math skills. A person stands in the middle of a circle of players with a ball. The person in the middle throws the ball in the air and yells out a number between one and 500. The player who catches the ball gets that same number of points. If the ball is dropped, those points are subtracted from that player's score. Each player keeps track of his or her own score. The first one to reach 500 points wins.

Hide-and-Seek with a twist: Try these alternatives to a kid favorite. Play it at dusk, with the seeker using a flashlight to look for the hiders. When a hider is discovered and “hit” by the flashlight beam, he or she returns to home base. Or play “Hide and Squish,” in which one person hides and the others seek. When a seeker finds the hider, the seeker joins him or her. This continues until there is only one seeker left.

Duck-Duck-Goose: An old favorite that keeps kids on the run. Sit in a circle. The person who is “it” walks around the outside of the circle tapping each person's head and saying, “duck.” Then the person who is “it” tags someone in the circle by pronouncing “goose" on their head. The tapped person has to jump up and try to tag the person who was “it” before that person reaches their spot in the circle. You can vary this game by using another combination of words, or having the people who are running and tagging make some other kind of move such as hopping or skipping.