This summer, keep your kiddos out of the house and occupied for hours by creating a super fun, super WET, backyard “splash course”. What’s a splash course? It’s an obstacle course filled with fun water-themed obstacles that will keep your kiddos busy, cool-on-a-hot-day and having a blast! Here’s how to create your own inexpensive, easy to craft course.
Main Supplies:
- Water Balloons
- Buckets
- Sprinkler
- Pool Noodles
- Kiddie Pool
- Hoola Hoops or something to jump through
- Slip N Slide (or tarp with buckets of water!)
Set up your course!
We love to put the sprinkler in the middle, with the obstacles set up around it. That way, the kids are getting “sprinkled” throughout the course. Set up obstacles (difficulty based on ages of your kids!) and let them run around…and around….and hopefully around again!
Here are 8 different obstacle ideas to get your creative juices flowing!
Obstacle 1: Pool Noodle Challenge
Set up Pool Noodles to “jump over” as the sprinkler sprays them with water. You can buy them at the Dollar Tree and cut them in half to make this a very inexpensive obstacle to create. Another option, depending on your “craftiness”, would be to fold the noodles into half circles for kids to crawl under! You just need to stake them into the ground with garden stakes or even pencils.
Obstacle 2: Kiddie Pool
Fill your kiddie pool up with water, and throw in a bunch of random objects for the kids to find! Think of it as a water scavenger hunt. Make it trickier by adding a ton of extra items. For example, if they need to look for 5 things, throw those in AND put in another 10-15 items to make it more difficult. Ideas to look for: dive rings, coins, bouncy balls, fake gems.
Obstacle 3: Water Balloon Toss
Fill up some water balloons and let them try their hand at bucket toss! Line up a series of buckets, have a bin of balloons, and see if your child can get a balloon into each of the buckets.
Obstacle 4: Fill the Bucket with a…Sponge!
Set out an empty bucket and a full bucket a few yards apart. Let your child run to the full bucket, fill up a sponge, then head back to the empty bucket to squeeze the water into it! Have a fill line drawn so they know they’ve completed the challenge.
Obstacle 5: Water Balloon Baseball
Tie full water balloons to a string and hang them from a tree branch. Set out a baseball bat and let your child whack the balloons until they’ve all popped.
Obstacle 6: Slip N’ Slide
This one doesn’t need much of an explanation, but kids sure do love slip n slides! Set one out and let them slide to the next obstacle.
Obstacle 7: Hoola Hoop Hop
Set out a few hoola hoops and let them hop their way through. Bonus points for having water balloons in each hoop they have to hop on!
Obstacle 8: Squirt Guns!
Set up a target, fill some water guns, and let your kids fill them up and spray away. One idea we loved was to color the center of a coffee filter...when the ink starts to run, you know you’ve completed the challenge!
We hope your splash course is a huge success!