★ Creative Outdoor Summer Game Ideas | Best DIY Garden Activities & Water Toys for Kids ★

During the hot summer, there is nothing more fun for kids than playing in cool water, competing in games and races, or taking part in a water fight with friends. There are water toys highlighted on this page which will hopefully appeal to kids of all ages, and there are even some extreme toys that adults can build and have fun with too!

The toys that have been picked are some of the best selling and highest rated water toys around. Buying any of these fun outdoor water toys is a great way to keep your children entertained during those hot summer months. Just be sure to always give the proper adult supervision when your child is playing with outdoor water toys.

I've also included some summer water game ideas to get the fun started, which I hope will inspire you to get out in the sun :-)

Safety tips: Kids should always be supervised near water, and water balloons can be a choking hazard for small children too. It's also best to clear up burst balloons quickly so they're not a risk to wildlife either. Thanks, and have fun!

- Tie a water balloon to the leg of every player - and when the game starts you must stamp on (or sit on - if you want a more difficult game) everybody else's balloon. The winner is the only one left with a balloon intact.

- Split people into 2 teams and have a bucket of water at one end of the yard, and an empty bucket at the other end. Balance a water-filled polystyrene or plastic cup on either a wooden ruler or your own head, and run with it to the empty bucket. Pour the water from the cup into the bucket. Everyone in the first team does this for a certain amount of time (say 5 minutes), whilst the other team throw water balloons and shoot water at them to try to stop them getting to the other side. People are disqualified if they carry the cups with their hands. The other team then takes their turn trying to fill another empty bucket, and the team which gets the most water into their empty bucket wins (have a measuring jug at the ready). A variation is carrying a water balloon between your knees and then popping it in the bucket.

- The classic 'bobbing for apples' game.

- Everyone has a piece of paper stuck to their backs with duct tape. A line is drawn across the centre of the paper using washable felt tip pen. The idea of the game is to hit the paper of everyone else with your water gun - and the felt tip pen line will make it more obvious when someone has been hit.

- Stand everyone in a circle with a bucket of water in the middle. Fill a colander with water and have it passed from person to person around the circle with everyone's arms outstretched over their head so water trickles onto them. The person that the colander is over when the water runs out has to dunk their head in the bucket before continuing.

- Someone kneels down and holds the water hose so it is spraying a jet of water in a horizontal line. Have people stand in a circle around the sprayer and the hose is rotated slowly around and around, getting slightly higher on each rotation. Everyone must try and jump clean over the water jet, and if you get hit, you're out. Variations on this are hose hurdles and hose limbo.

- Obstacle course - have a series of activities you must do such as running along a slippy plastic sheet, jumping over hurdles, shooting a water balloon into a target (bucket) etc - perhaps all whilst being sprayed at with water pistols.

- Have someone running around with a bucket or hula hoop and you take it in turns to get water balloons into the moving target.

- Have 2 teams and get each team to line up in a row. The first team to get a water balloon from one end of the line to the other (without using their hands) wins. If the balloon is dropped, the team must start again.

- Water balloons could be hidden around the garden or park (like a treasure hunt) and people can then try and find the most for themselves. A few balloons could be specially marked to be 'bonus' balloons, and these could be worth another point. The person who wins gets a prize. A variation is to hide 1, 2 or 3 items like bottle tops, bits of plastic straw etc inside different balloons so the balloons all score different points when collected.

- Give each kid a bucket and have them sit around a paddling pool. Put ice cubes in the pool and give the kids a set time to transfer the cubes to their bucket - with their feet! The kid with the most ice in their bucket wins.

- Have two teams and give each an ice cube of equal size. They must, as a team, melt the ice by any means possible. The first team to melt all of the ice wins.

- Volley a water balloon between 2 teams, with each team using a sheet or towel (one person holding each corner or side) to throw and catch the balloon. Score a team a point if the opposing team doesn't catch the balloon, breaks the balloon or volleys the balloon badly.

- Lay out a few beach towels in your garden so they are well spaced apart. These represent 'safe zones'. Have 2 teams. A member of one team will either have a water gun, water bottle or water balloons and try to wet every member of the opposite team as quickly as possible - but only whilst they are not in the 'safe zones'. The rest of that team will sit out and watch.

The 'playing' team will start on the towels/safe zones and every time someone makes it from one towel to another without getting wet they score a point. If they get wet they must lie on the floor. A person who is 'out' can be rescued by another member of their team by carrying them back to a 'safe zone' (piggyback is probably easiest). Make sure someone's scoring throughout.

Fun for kids at least 8 years old.