Backyard Fun and Games For Summer
In and around Crystal Valley, there’s plenty to keep kids occupied, especially at Pinnacle Park with the giant slide, swimming pool, sports fields and courts! But when the young ones want to stay home, here are a few backyard ideas for summer fun.
Game On!
Okay, definitely more than a weekend went into this backyard scrabble game. Sunset showcases the life-size diversion that required a wooden frame and poured concrete, scored into squares then stained. The Scrabble pieces were no easy feat, either, but just look at the giant mind-bending fun you can have for backyard parties!
Similar to giant scrabble is this outdoor word game from the curated collection of 37 at Better Homes and Gardens. Using a 4×8 sheet of Masonite from the Castle Rock Home Depot or Lowe’s, the sheets is cut into 8-inch squares with letters on them. Each player gets 10 letters and the first spells a word on the ground. The next player must build off of that word and the player with the fewest letters left at the end, wins!
This collection had fun outdoor games for all ages and includes art games, games of skill and chance and physical relays. We’d like to see videos of the Popcorn Drop gam
e – that could easily include kids in their 30s and 40s! For 33 more DIY backyard games for kids that’ll keep them having fun all summer, check out the Word to Your Mother blog, or HomeBNC, for the young and the young-at-heart.
And speaking of BIG KIDS, we don’t even know these people but watching them play games in the yard, made us smile for quite awhile!
DIY Tents and Hideouts
Who wouldn’t want a teepee (or tipi) in the backyard for the summer? At Ziggity Zoom Sharon and Kristin, the creative mother-daughter duo came up with a DIY teepee for the three sons/grandsons. They admit, it’s not exactly up to Native American standards, but they did keep the project simple enough for any family to make.
The materials list includes nine 10-foot poles (preferably bamboo) and a 12×18 heavy duty canvas dropcloth. The pair calculates you’ll need $125 to $150 in materials and after finishing the project understood how ingenious the structure is – giving shelter and shade in a yard without nails, saws or power tools!
You can go hula crazy with a couple of hoops and shower curtains and create little hideouts for the kids. Mom Blogger Carrie at Making Lemonade created this no-sew refuge for her kids – and pulled it off in an couple of hours. Pick up hula hoops and shower curtains at the Walmart in Castle Rock and watch your kids love, love, love these impromptu tents. This budget-friendly idea comes together for about $25.
For a little more time and effort, Rubyellen, blogging for A Beautiful Mess, shared instructions for a simple A-frame tent, with some moulding strips, skinny dowels, a drill and spade bit, plus fabric. You can score everything but the fabric at Home Depot on Allen Street. The result is easy to set up, take down, move indoors for a kid-friendly favorite.
Buy Instead of DIY
These are buys not DIYs, but when the temperatures rise and kids need to cool off, consider this inflatable sprinkler park from Walmart. And just because it’s designed for the under-18 set, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have a blast with it, too! For a more artistic pursuit, try walkie chalk. This brilliant invention lets kids create works of art outside, minus the mess, with a long-handled adjustable chalk holder.
For a dozen more ideas for active, engaged summer fun, visit Care.com’s list of 101 things to do and spark your imagination!
Backyard Entertainment in Crystal Valley
Backyards in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley are made for cookouts, sleepouts, and games of all descriptions! Stop by to explore the new homes surrounded by nature only minutes from the town of Castle Rock. With a variety of beautiful models from Richmond American Homes, Kauffman Homes, Century Communities and D.R. Horton, these ranch or two-story models come in all shapes and sizes — priced from the high $300s.
