Cy's Outdoor Games Blog

Playing the same types of games in an outdoor swingset will be boring for the kids. Adding more activities into the usual ones they enjoy will be a great idea. Some of the games they may play are traditional – meaning you may have played the same games when you were still kids. Other games may be modern that you no longer have ideas on. Just watch them play around their outdoor swingset and you will notice that your kids will have a fun time.

While you are always after your kid’s safety in their outdoor swingset, you should allow them to explore activities that you once enjoyed during your childhood. You have been a kid once and you know how it feels when your parents restricted you from doing “this” and from doing “that”. Maybe you may want the idea of giving more freedom to your kids while they think of other activities aside from playing on their outdoor swingset.

Outdoor games that can be played even if the outdoor swingset is present
The outdoor swingset may mark the start of each playtime for your children. It may also be utilized while they opt to rest from their outdoor games. Therefore, you may give your kids the idea to engage in the following activities:

1. Swing the Statue. This game is not just ideal for kids. Adults may also participate in the activity. While you are gathered around the outdoor swingset, you may play the game. The person who plays “it” takes charge of swinging his co-players. The “it” has the choice of who to swing. Once he swings his co-player, the latter should remain in a frozen position. Whoever moves from that position will be the next “it” for the game.

2. Kickball. With the remaining portion of your playground where you placed your outdoor swingset, your school children may play this very popular American game. This is like football or soccer where your kids will hit the ball through their feet. A playground ball of at least eight to 10-inch diameter is a wise investment for this outdoor activity. While kicking is typical to football, the game follows the rules of baseball where kids run in four bases.

3. Capture the Flag. Another fun activity that has been used for many years now is Capture the Flag. This game is popular to camping activities. You may do the same thing around your outdoor swingset area too. You need flags and flagpoles. If you do not have these items, you may just improvise one for the game. There are two teams with their respective territories. Basically, the team that takes more flags than others on guarded territory will win the game.

These are just a few fun games that your kids may enjoy even if the outdoor swingset is around. They may spend some time in these activities and be tired afterwards. After playing these more physical activities, they may turn over to their outdoor swingset for more relaxation. Placing these two wonderful outdoor events together is like hitting two birds with a single stone.

Published At: Isnare Free Articles Directory http://www.isnare.com

Bean bag is more than just a backyard game according to this article from the N.C. Salisbury Post.com

Cornhole game catches on

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:00 AM Jimmy Stowe, right, throws in the final matchup of Saturday’s Cornhole Toss Open at South Rowan High School’s stadium, held to raise money for Bible education at South Rowan. Andy Huffman, left, and teammate Richard Yates beat Stowe and his partner Johnny Hines to win the tournament. Huffman and Yates are also state cornhole toss champions. Ryan Honeycutt, left, watches as his competition, Tim Pate, throws a bean bag at a cornhole toss tournament on Saturday. Honeycutt and teammate Adam Jordan eventually beat Pate and his teammate, Jeff Royston, but then lost in the semifinal round against state cornhole toss champions Andy Huffman and Richard Yates.   By Noelle Edwards nedwards@salisburypost.com If you had closed your eyes and walked into South Rowan High School’s stadium on Saturday morning, aside from falling down the stairs, you might have thought you were in the middle of a basketball or baseball game. Or at least a rousing round of tug-o-war. You would have been wrong. The stadium actually played host to a cornhole toss Saturday. Cornhole, as in that game they set up in a carnival midway that involves throwing bean bags at a board with a hole in it. Sixteen teams competed ferociously with one another for the $100 prize. Competitors cheered on their partners with phrases such as “Keep it up,” “Calm down,” and “We got ‘em right where we want ‘em.” They trash talked, making references to people’s mothers. They strategized and calculated, meticulously kept score and charted it with brackets, refreshed themselves with bottles of water and wiped sweat from their foreheads. Pretty intense for a lawn game. The competition was emblematic of a growing cornhole-playing population. A Google search turns up rules, competitions, associations, terminology pages and news. One Facebook group for cornhole — there are several — has more than 104,500 members, and another has nearly 80,000. Official cornhole rules determine that opposing boards must be 27 feet away from each other. Each bean bag that lands in the hole scores three points. Each one to land on the board scores one point. After a player from each team has tossed four bags, the teams — made of two players — count their own points and subtract the higher number from the lower, and that’s the point total of that round, going to the team with the higher points, of course. And it goes on like that until one team scores 21. Teams play for charity sometimes or just pool their money and award the winner the take. Saturday’s tournament raised money for the South Rowan Public School Bible Teaching Association — basically to fund a Bible history elective at South Rowan High School. Each team paid $20 to compete, plus concessions, of which they were strongly encouraged to partake. Bennett Hester, chairman of the association’s board, hoped the organization would walk away with a couple thousand dollars from the day. Pretty good, considering that only a few months prior most of the members of the board had never even heard of cornhole. The idea for the tournament was pastor and board member Steve Sprinkle’s. People in his church play, and he suggested it as a supplement to the organization’s annual golf tournament, held this year on Oct. 24. Pete Kluttz from the association made 10 boards, Sprinkle put them together and painted them a solid color, and his wife, Ann Sprinkle, painted logos of sports teams and the Bible Teaching Association. Just the painting took four or five hours per board, Ann Sprinkle said. Daisy Rodgers, the mother of the group’s treasurer, made the bags for the tournament and extra bags to sell. Hester said he hopes to see more people come if they hold the event again next year, but for the first year he was happy to have so many serious competitors. “It just kind of surprised me,” Hester said. “I’ve been around a long time and I never heard of it.” Tim Pate, who’s been playing about six years, heard of it from his boss, an Ohio native. He said he thinks it’s more of a Midwest game. “Now the Southerners own it,” said Jeff Royston, Pate’s teammate. Several competitors at Saturday’s event were veterans of the sport. Bubba Renken and Mugsy Helms, both of China Grove, came in third place in this year’s state cornhole championship and fourth the year before. “It’s good competition for 30-year-old men,” Renken said. “It’s something you can do in your backyard and your wife won’t fuss at you.” Renken and Helms were topped in state championship play by two other men competing on Saturday. Andy Huffman of China Grove and Richard Yates of Salisbury are the reigning state champions of cornhole, and have been for two years. Apparently they have a knack because they hadn’t really played much before. Yates was driving through Raleigh and heard an announcement on the radio about the state championship tournament and thought it would be fun. And it was. It didn’t hurt that he and Huffman walked away with custom cornhole sets, which sell for $200 or more, after beating 63 teams in 2008 and 95 teams this year. No cash prize for that contest. Saturday’s tournament made them each $50 richer though; they won their way through the bracket, beating the final team in a back-to-back matchup, and became that competition’s champion team as well. Don’t think it was an easy victory, though. A few teams, including the one that came in second place, were made of people from a cornhole troop, of sorts. The Kannapolis Regulators get together and travel the region — as close as their own houses and as far as South Carolina — playing cornhole. They hold tournaments for restaurants that want to drum up business. “We play every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday,” said Don Mackling, who bills himself their president. “We do it for charity. Plus to help us win money,” said Jason Van Buren. The Kannapolis Regulators had eight people in Saturday’s tournament. They played Friday night until late and were hoping to finish in China Grove early enough to enter a tournament in Charlotte later on Saturday. (For the record, the China Grove contest went long into the afternoon, and the Regulators were fairly involved in the competition, not to mention the cheering and trash talking.) “Where else can you play a sport that you can do it with a beer in your hand?” said Van Buren. So it’s not the NFL. But between the sweating and the spitting, evaluating which boards to play on and which bags to toss — all the bags are a pound, but the players preferred larger and looser ones to those stuffed tightly — and the “ohhhh”-ing and color commentary from spectators, Saturday’s five-hour competition had the tense moments and frequent victories of more traditional sporting games. “You wouldn’t think there’d be this much drama,” Roxanne Johnson, South Rowan Bible teacher, said. “It gets worse when it’s not a church function,” Helms said For this and other backyard games go to:            http://www.cysbackyardsports.com

How’s that for a book title by Texas Bix Bender?  Since I live in Texas, I find this “Cowboy’s Guide to Life” has a wealth of good thoughts that I thought I would pass along to you from time to time.  I realize this blog deals with outdoor games but let’s face it.  This is my blog so I have no problem diverting occasionally.   This Code Of The West sums up my approach to this Blog.  Write it in your heart.  Stand by the Code, and it will stand by you.  Ask no more and give no less than honesty, courage, loyality, generosity and fairness.

Badminton has been played since ancient times; an early form of the sport was played in ancient Greece. In Japan, the related game Hanetsuki was played as early as the 16th century. In the west, badminton came from a game called battledore and shuttlecock, in which two or more players keep a feathered shuttlecock in the air with small racquets.

The modern form of Badminton however can be traced to India, where British military officers stationed there in the late 19th century became interested in a similar local game which was known to them as Poona (derived from Pune, an Indian garrison town).[2][3] This game was taken back to England where the rules of badminton were set out.[2][3] Another early version of the game was recorded in the 1850s in the southern Indian city of Tanjore, called pooppanthu vilayattam (Tamil for flower-ball game) in which balls made of wool and cardboard were used in the place of the modern-day shuttlecock.[3]

Isaac Spratt, a London toy dealer, published a booklet, “Badminton Battledore – a new game” in 1860, but unfortunately no copy has survived.[4]

The new sport was definitively launched in 1873 at the Badminton House, Gloucestershire, owned by the Duke of Beaufort. During that time, the game was referred to as “The Game of Badminton,” and the game’s official name became Badminton.[5]

Until 1887, the sport was played in England under the rules that prevailed in India. The Bath Badminton Club standardized the rules and made the game applicable to English ideas. The basic regulations were drawn up in 1887.[5] In 1893, the Badminton Association of England published the first set of rules according to these regulations, similar to today’s rules, and officially launched badminton in a house called “Dunbar” at 6 Waverley Grove, Portsmouth, England on September 13 of that year.[6] They also started the All England Open Badminton Championships, the first badminton competition in the world, in 1899.

The International Badminton Federation (IBF) (now known as Badminton World Federation) was established in 1934 with Canada, Denmark, England, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales as its founding members. India joined as an affiliate in 1936. The BWF now governs international badminton and develops the sport globally.[5]

While set-out in England, competitive badminton in Europe has traditionally been dominated by Denmark. Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia are among the nations that have consistently produced world-class players in the past few decades and dominated competitions on the international level, with China being the most dominant in recent years.[7]

For Badminton equipment go to:

http://www.cysbackyardsports.com/content-categories/cat-386/badminton.html

At a neighborhood picnic or block party you might have a larger group of children to keep entertained. Here is one game you might use. For WILD HORSE ROUND UP divide children into two groups. One group is WILD HORSES and the other is the COWBOYS. The COWBOYS stay behind the coral (line) while the HORSES run about the yard. When leader yells “Wild Horse Round Up” the COWBOYS run and catch the HORSES to bring them into the coral. Once all the HORSES are caught, switch groups. Make sure the HORSES know the limits on where they can go.

Don’t know where that name came from but this is a game for at least two people, child or adult, and requires a tennis ball along with a wall to throw it against.  The first person throws the ball against the wall.  When it comes bouncing back someone has to catch it and throw it against the wall again.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Wait.  The person catching the ball cannot drop it. Once you’ve touched the ball it can’t touch the ground.  If you catch the ball successfully and throw it against the wall the play continues until someone drops it or tries to throw it against the wall and it hits the ground first.  Here is where the game gets interesting.  If a player drops the ball, they must immediately run and tag the wall before another player picks it up and throws it against the wall.  If the first player touches the wall first, he/she is SAFE but if not they get a point.  If the second player also drops the ball they must do the same.  First to 3 points loses.

Here is a variation of the TAG that you all are familiar with. The “IT” person counts to 10 before running after everyone.  If he/she tags someone they have to make themselves into a “bridge”.  The only way for them to become “free” again is to have someone crawl under the bridge without getting tagged.  Play continues until the IT person is the only one not turned into a bridge,

Ever hear of a city-wide game festival?  Well, I ran across this report: New York’s Come Out And Play Festival which is a three day festival with a mission to encourage public games and play.  This all started in 2006 when it was founded by Peter Lee and consists of about 35 different games, all unique to me.  I’m sure if you want to start something like this in your town you will be able to come up with your own games.  Meanwhile here is a short description of a couple of the games played in New York.  One group of games is called the Neo-Cowgirl Faux Rodeo consisting of three events:  bronco buck, barrel race and hog-tie.  In the bronco buck, a bed sheet was spread on the ground and a yoga ball was positioned at one end.  The cowgirl rider balance the tops of her feet on the ball while forming a plank with the rest of her  body  and steadying herself using two palms face down on the ground.  Rustlers then held edges of the sheet and shook it until the cowgirl was bucked from her “bronco” or until she had stayed on for four whole seconds.

Another game  is Circle Rules Football in which there are two teams and the goal post is placed in the center of the field.  The field had no boundries because the play keeps the large  (Yoga) ball toward the middle.  Sorry, I don’t have more details from the article posted by Simon Carless in GameSetWatch on June 18. 2009 but I could not find him when I went to CameSetWatch.  Regardless, you can come-uo, dream-up your own games and contact vendors as sponsors and for prizes.

Actually this is a basket ball game with 21 as the winning score.  First, all players take a turn taking a foul shot to “break the ice”.  The first to “break the ice” gets 2 points and gets to go first.  Each foul shot after breaking the ice is worth 1 point.  This is not just about foul shots, however.  When the foul shooter misses the other players go for the rebound and try to score – this is where the points add up. Scoring off the rebound gets you 2 points.  If a player catches the rebound with both hands, in the air, and makes the basket without touching the ground the foul shooter goes back to zero..  But, if a player catches the rebound with one hand and makes the basket the foul shooter is out completely and must wait for the next game.  The foul shooter can only make 3 in a row.  If that happens they get the ball at the top of the key and try to make a basket against all the other players defense.