Picnic Games
Outdoor Game Ideas

Picnic games in the garden, a park or on the beach can be a great way to unwind from the grind of everyday life and put aside our adult responsibilities for a while.

If you're planning a picnic party, you know you're going to need entertainment in the form of a picnic game idea or two. You can spend a heap of money taking children to an amusement park, while, for a fraction of the cost, you can have as much fun having a picnic.

In this era of endless television, video games and computers, an outdoor meal is a welcome change for most of us and a few well thought-out activities and safe outdoor kids games can go a long way to making the event a huge success.

Relax and have fun games

For large groups of children or young adults icebreaker games are a fun way of getting introduced to everyone.

Later you'll want to have some more quiet games on hand, to calm any hyperactive kids down, to play in the shade if it's very hot, or simply for the adults to relax with after eating, or while finishing off the last of the beer/wine!

The alphabet game "Going On A Picnic" is a good way to calm down the children and young teens after a bout of activity.

Another is to draw portraits of each other on paper plates. This is fun for guests of any age and ability. According to Jean, a visitor to this site from the USA, this "is a blast".

I also strongly suggest downloading a hamper of printable picnic games.

You can print out a whole bundle of them, or choose individual ones to suit the picnickers. And it doesn't matter where in the world you live because you can pay with PayPal and then print them off yourself.

The hamper is downloadable in an instant and individually would cost a whopping $72.45. However, they are available together for $19.95 (around £13) - terrific value.

Another sedentary adult picnic game is Buzz, for which you need to try and remember your maths!

Sit in a ring and take it in turns to shout out a number – in sequence. Make it easy by starting at 1 to begin with.
Each time the number has a 7 in it, or is divisible by 7, then the person must say “buzz” instead of the number. If they don’t, then they’re out.
The winner is the last person in.

Example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Buzz, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, Buzz, 15, 16, Buzz, 18, 19, 20, Buzz, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, Buzz, Buzz, 29, 30 etc.

This really makes your brain tick over, as you have to concentrate not only on what you’re going to say, but also on your friends so that you can get them out. It helps if someone in the party is really good at maths!

More energetic picnic games

The 200 year old game of hopscotch gets you jumping around and a sack race can always be relied upon to create lots of laughter.

If you have enough people at your picnic you can also organise some racket games.

For teenagers and grown-ups a limbo game is fun and very entertaining. Find out how flexible everyone is!

Alternatively divide into teams or pairs for a scavenger hunt or a children's treasure hunt.

Depending on the number of guests, you can coordinate a variety of entertainment. You’ll need to consider the amount of space available and the sort of ground.

If, for example, you have a large expanse of grass in a park, you may want to organize picnic games of croquet, boules or lawn skittles so that everyone can join in.

Other enjoyable adult picnic games just involve using your creativity and perhaps a pencil and paper or a balloon or two:

Games such as Pass the Balloon can be hilarious. First split into teams.

Pass a balloon along the team using necks and chins only (absolutely no hands!)
pass a long balloon (or even a baby marrow or very large courgette) along the team using only your knees.

Have a camera at the ready because, trust me, you’ll want to take photos!

Obviously the first team to get the balloon all the way along the team wins.

Then there is Frisbee Golf for which you need some wide open space, as well as Frisbees of course, and two or three towels and/or small tablecloths.

Place the towels far enough away that there is plenty of room to throw the Frisbee towards them.

The game can be played with any number of participants. The winner is the player with the lowest number of throws.

The rules are like those of standard golf:

Each player will "tee off" by throwing the Frisbee with the aim of landing it on the first towel.
After each player has thrown once, he then continues to throw his Frisbee until it lands on the towel. The number of throws is the score for that "hole".
Once every player has landed his or her Frisbee on the towel, continue on to the next "hole."
You can add additional "holes" by moving the towels.

On-going picnic game

Assassin is an amusing adult picnic game which can be running for the whole length of the picnic.

Cut up some card into business card sizes, one for each person at the picnic.

Mark one card with an A but leave all the other cards blank. Fold each card and put them into a container.

At the picnic, everyone takes a card but no looking at others or telling! The person with the A is the Assassin.
During the picnic, the Assassin must secretly wink at people. When someone is winked at, they must declare that they have been hit by the Assassin and they are dead.
If another picnicker thinks he has seen the Assassin winking, then he can declare the suspect. However, you only get one chance each at a declaration and if you’re wrong you’re also dead. If you’re right, then you win the game.
If nobody guesses who the Assassin is, then the Assassin wins when they wink at the last person without being seen.