One of the best things about Millenia is there’s lots of room to enjoy the outdoors! Whether you have yard space or live in a condo or apartment, you can look forward to a park within a three-minute walk of wherever you are. Getting out in the grass with the family calls for a good time! These yard games for kids are simple to learn and easy to play, and you don’t need any expensive equipment. Try one out on your lawn, or head to one of Millenia’s nearby parks to enjoy fun outdoors and time in your local community!

Also known as cornhole, this game is a simple one to set up and play, but you’ll need good aim to win! In bean bag toss, the object is to hit a target with a thrown bean bag. In the classic version of the game, the target is a hole cut in a game board. Players score three points for hitting the target and one point for landing their bean bag anywhere on the board.

One fun thing about cornhole is how easy it is to create variations. The game board can have several holes rather than just one, and different point values can be assigned depending on how difficult the holes are to hit. Or increase the challenge and boost the fun of the game by challenging your kids to throw:

• With their non-dominant hand
• With their eyes closed
• While standing on one foot

Where to Buy Bean Bag Toss

Purchase a full cornhole set at Walmart, online at Amazon, or make your own, another fun activity for the whole family!

Bocce ball is another tossing-style game, for two to eight players arranged in two teams. It has a somewhat complicated set of scoring rules, but once you learn them, they are simple to remember. If young kids are joining in, consider simplifying the play order or scoring, so they can manage the game without supervision.

A bocce set includes eight colored throwing balls and a ninth ball called the “pallino.”

To play bocce ball, it’s best to play in a real bocce court, but it’s not necessary! You can mark out a bocce court on a stretch of flat grass. The court should be rectangle-shaped and about 13 feet by 90 feet in size. If you don’t have that much room to play or you’re not able to mark out a court, it’s fine to play on an unmarked stretch of grass. Playing in a bocce court adds to the strategic element, but it’s a fun game to play anywhere!

Here’s how to play bocce ball:

1. Use a method such as rock-paper-scissors or a coin toss to decide who throws the pallino for the first set. They must throw it into roughly the center of the court or playing area. After the first set, teams take turns throwing the pallino.
2. In a single set of bocce ball, every player throws their ball one time. The traditional method of deciding the throwing order is to have one player from each team throw their ball. The team with the player whose ball landed furthest away throws their remaining balls, followed by players from the other team.

A simpler method is to have players on the team that won the pallino throw go first, then players from the second team.

3. When they throw their ball, each player tries to land their ball as close to the pallino as possible.
4. The set is over when every player has had a turn.
5. To score the set, measure which bocce ball is closest to the pallino. The team with the closest ball is the winning team. This team scores a point for every ball that is closer to the pallino than the other team’s closest ball.

Any of the winning team’s balls that are touching the pallino score two points instead of one. For a simpler scoring method, award a point to the person or team with the closest ball and an extra point for any balls touching the pallino.

6. The first team to get to 12 points is the winner. If you want a shorter or longer game, just choose a smaller or larger points target.

Where to Buy a Bocce Set

Go online to Amazon, or check out a local sporting goods store like Dick’s®.

Fly is a simple, fun lawn game that’s great exercise too. It’s best for older kids, teens, and adults, as very young children will find it hard to keep up with the older players!

You’ll need a long, flat stretch of ground and a half-dozen or so straight sticks. Here’s how to play:

1. Line up the sticks parallel to one another, so each stick is around a foot apart.
2. Use rock-paper-scissors or another method to decide the order of play.
3. Player 1 steps through the line of sticks, without touching any of the sticks with their feet and without taking more than one step between each stick.
4. At the last stick, they jump as far as they can. This is the flying part!
5. When they land after flying, they stand in place. At this point, they choose one of the sticks in the row, and another player moves that stick and places it just behind the heels of Player 1.
6. Each player takes their turn in the same way. As the game proceeds, the sticks get further and further apart, so it gets harder to complete each turn. If any player touches a stick with their foot or takes more than one step between each stick, they’re out.
7. The game continues until just one player is left.

Can’t quite visualize it? Here’s a video that should clear up any questions!

Where to Buy Fly Sticks

Don’t bother! You can use any sticks you find in nature or anything stick-shaped.

You’ll need a ladder ball (AKA bola ball) set, which includes a metal or plastic frame with three rungs. The other component of the game are the bolas. Each bola is made from two golf balls connected by a short length of nylon rope.

1. To start a round of ladder ball, use rock-paper-scissors or a coin toss to decide who goes first.
2. Each player has three throws. Their goal is to throw your bolas, so they catch on one of the rungs of the ladder. You can also use your throw to try and knock another player’s bola off the ladder.
3. Once everyone has their turn, the round is scored. Players earn three points for each bola that landed on the top rung, two points for bolas on the middle rung, and one point for bolas on the bottom rung of the ladder.

If you don’t have enough bolas for everyone to throw, tally points after each person throws their bolas, and remove the bolas after each person throws.

4. The winner of each round is the person with the highest points total, and the first person to 21 points wins the game.

You can also play in teams!

Where to Buy Ladder Ball

Check out Bed Bath & Beyond® or Lowe’s®. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could build your own set.

Ring toss is similar to bean bag toss, but with different equipment and a slightly different method of play. Instead of tossing bean bags, players toss rings. And instead of aiming at a hole, players try to toss their rings over an object on the ground, such as a stake, peg, or even a rock. As with the bean bag toss, points are assigned based on the difficulty of the throw. Targets further away are worth more points than targets nearer to the throwing line.

To play, set up your targets, then use rock-paper-scissors or a coin toss to decide who goes first. Every player has a turn to throw, and once everyone has their turn, points are scored. The first person to hit the points target is the winner!

As with cornhole, you can up the challenge and the fun with simple variations that make it harder to hit the target.

Where to Buy Ring Toss

Make your own backyard ring toss with the kids, or purchase at set at Walmart or on Amazon.

Simple, Fun Lawn Games You Can Enjoy Almost Anywhere!

These lawn games are simple to set up, learn, and play, so they’re perfect for kids of all ages to enjoy. They’re inexpensive as well. Go to a big-box or online store, or make your own sets. Whether you’re playing at home on your own lawn or heading to a nearby Millenia park for some outdoor time, these lawn games for kids are sure to provide hours of fun for them and for you too!