Outdoor games for your street party

Outdoor games

Wacky races

Set up a series of wacky races for your street party to get everyone moving. Think old-school sports day races – an egg and spoon race, a sack race or a three-legged race. 

Space out some clothes in a line that are easy to put on and run in (hats, scarves, old shirts) and have a dress-up relay race. Or put a spin on it by having contestants put on pieces of clothing throughout the race – the more fiddly the better! 

You can also invent your own challenges. Who can do the most hula hoops or wang a welly the furthest distance? Have odd and even house numbers compete in a tug-of-war, or write a list of things to be collected and send your teams off to hunt. Outdoor hunts could take inspiration from nature and include leaves, pebbles or flowers. An alternative is Human Bingo, where you must find someone in the group who meets certain criteria. We’ve got instructions in our Big Lunch pack. 

If you don’t mind a bit of mess, line everyone up in partners and have them throw and catch an egg between them. The last pair without a broken egg win!
 

Team sports

Go for a friendly game of five-a-side rounders or cricket! Wheel out a wheelie bin or drag out a dustbin to use as wickets or use them as bases to run round in rounders. Think about the space available and how you can make the games as safe and inclusive as possible. 

Fancy your own Wimbledon Championships but don’t have a court? What about setting up a table tennis tournament instead? Or build up your appetite for a Big Lunch with a game of five-a-side football. 

You can also set up easy bowling by foraging in your recycling bin and filling any plastic bottles with water, stones or sand to use as pins! Roll a football or use a tennis ball French boules style!

Table games

Simon Says, Charades and Who am I? are all games you can play if you want to stay sitting down, and they’re great for a party.  

Give everyone a party hat and pop a sticky note on with a famous person’s name, so they can’t see it. Split into pairs and ask yes-no questions to work out who the celebrity is! 

Or play a version of Pictionary – divide everyone up into teams and take it in turns to draw – the team who gets it right wins the point. Use a blackboard or easel if you have one – but otherwise just get some large sheets of paper and tape them on to a wall or garden fence. Come up with the words ahead of time for people to pull out of a jar at random. 

And finally, Pass the Parcel doesn’t have to be only for children’s parties! You could always hide ice-breaker questions or fun challenges as well as treats between the layers. We’ve got some great conversation starters in our Big Lunch pack! 

Playground games

A good game for a giggle is animal tag. Name a person to be ‘it’ – they call out an animal and everyone must act and move like it as they try to avoid being tagged. Or you could try Duck Duck Goose and Stuck in the Mud – both classic playground games! 

You could draw an obstacle course on the street in chalk with action stations, lines to follow and circles to jump between. Or pop some music on and organise a game of Musical Statues or Musical Chairs.