How to play: First, paint a straight, even stripe on a flat section of lawn to stand in for a balance beam. (A standard gymnastics beam is four inches wide by 16 feet long, if you’re feeling fastidious.) Then challenge team members to perform a series of increasingly difficult maneuvers without straying from the stripe: walking backward; hopping on one foot; and doing cartwheels. How to play: Fun fact: Croquet made its Olympic debut at the 1900 Paris Games (and never got invited back). In this twist on the classic, one team member must complete the course blindfolded, using only vocal cues from a single team member to guide him—which puts as much emphasis on communication and cooperation as on sheer mallet-wielding skill. How to play: Each team selects one member to compete in a crab-walk race—like a reverse crawl, on your hands and feet with your stomach facing up—from one side of the yard to the other and then back again. How to play: A water-balloon relay is just as tricky as the old egg-in-spoon relay race you grew up with, only less messy—or wasteful. (If you’re able to do this on the beach, running in sand adds an extra challenge.) Mark handoff points (about 30 feet apart) and position runners at each. The first team to make three successful balloon transfers and cross the finish line—balloon intact—wins. Tip: Try using biodegradable water balloons, in case one of the remnants gets buried before you have a chance to collect them. How to play: For this fun backyard game, position the hoops in the same formation as the five Olympic rings. Then have players take turns tossing a bean bag into each ring, while standing behind a line several feet away. Each team member takes five tosses, and earns one point for each bag that lands in a hoop. (Only one bag per hoop gets a point.) How to play: Select one player from each team to compete in a hula-hoop endurance test. Whoever keeps the hoop spinning around his or her waist longest wins. How to play: For this fun Olympic game, choose a pair of players from each team, designating one the “captain” and one the “tug.” Each captain sits atop an air mattress, holding one end of the rope, while the tug grasps the outer edge of the mattress and acts as the propeller, pulling the captain and mattress away from the other team. The first captain to drop the rope, topple into the water, or be pulled to the opposite side of the pool loses the game. How to play: Each player must move his or her beach ball from one side of the pool to the other across the water’s surface, using only the spray from the water gun to propel it. Depending on the size and shape of the pool, you may want to position both shooters on one side of the pool, pushing their balls to the opposite side, or have each racer travel along a different pool edge. How to play: Try this twist on the traditional Olympic dive event: For this pool game, the water landing with the biggest splash wins.
