29 Ways to Entertain Kids (Games)

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Take your child out for her first big catch.
Next: Set up games that kids and adults can play together-like croquet and badminton.
Take turns around a campfire telling scary (but not too scary) ghost stories.
Next: Provide pure joy: sun, shore, and sand castles.
Next: Introduce a new generation to an old game, bocce.
Next: Encourage a future Tiger Woods to practice hitting it out of the rough (and away from the house!).
Next: Toss the best pizza party ever, with café tablecloths and stick-on mustaches.
Next: Scout out a good climbing tree, with an angled trunk and strong, low branches.
Next: Unleash an imagination, with delicious results.
Next: Let kids do a little backward thinking at a party where everything-decorations included-is reversed.
Next: Make gorgeous bubbles without a wand: Form an OK sign, submerge fingers in bubble solution, and blow gently.
Next: Give a child the taste of freedom that comes with a bike.Next: Run with abandon in the sunshine.
Next: Grab some sidewalk chalk and draw a hopscotch court that you can jump along on too.
Next: Send young guests at a backyard birthday party fishing for prizes.
Next: Provide a world of possibility with a cupful of crayons.
Next: Start a game of tag-the more players, the merrier.
Next: Run an egg race using spoons and red foam balls.
Next: Turn paper-airplane making into a shared sport by folding a pair with your child and then seeing whose can go the farthest.
Next: Organize a game of four square, with chalk, a ball, and at least four players.
Next: Turn on sprinklers for cooling-off fun.
Next: Welcome children into the kitchen, a wonderful way for parents and kids to spend time together.
Next: Punch a small hole in the bottom of each can, slide in a string, and knot it to make a tin-can telephone.
Next: Give your child free rein on a wall-or at least on an easy-to-wipe-clean chalkboard decal.
Next: Lose the donkey and pin the pepperoni on the pizza instead.
Next: Enjoy the spoils of a treasure hunt–themed party with a band of mates.
Next: Let your little one play fortune-teller with this paper game that predicts a player’s future-like “You will serve dessert for dinner.”
Next: Fill a pool with toys of summer. No child will resist their lure.
Next: Stuff a piñata with treats and suspend it from a tree limb: a sure party hit.