Kids or children love to play the top team/ball games in summer anywhere they can, including in their backyards. This can be less than ideal for the gardener’s floral displays, and at times may raise objections from near neighbors if the ball strays or noise levels rise with the excitement!
Here are 5 very special favorite summer games for kids of any age:
1. Cricket
The archetypal summer game can be enjoyed by kids in the back yard, with a tennis ball and a cheap ‘toy’ bat, once they understand the basics of the game. They can play with as few as three players if they mark the stumps on a wall behind the batting position.
The rules are simple for children’s cricket and essentially the same as for the adult game except that all will agree the position of the boundary for a six, which will be at a fence or a flower border edge.
Adult cricket is played on an oval patch of grass in the center of which is a flat strip of ground called a cricket pitch. A wooden wicket is placed at each end of the pitch, but you can scale this down to suit circumstances at any time for a children’s game.
Cricket is the game of passion, thrill and excitement. Many have said that the game is a brotherhood, with all that fraternity entails, including mutual obligation. Cricket is the most popular sport in India, and one of the most popular sports played over the Australian summer.
Watch this Children’s Summer Games Video from YouTube Now!
Although cricket is not a contact sport, injuries can and do occur, often due to overuse. Children must never use a hard cricket ball for their games, or spend too long at any one playing role.
2. Rounders
Rounders is believed to have been the game from which baseball is derived. Baseball is clearly the most popular in the US, but rounders is also played, and is good for children in largish back yards and on playgrounds. Rounders is now played on all levels from school-level to internationals.
Rounders is more straightforward and sober-minded than baseball. However, it is is a bat and ball game and is not that dis-similar to baseball. Rounders can and is played throughout the summer by all age groups, from school children all the way up to and including senior level. It is, in fact,an English version of baseball and is normally played between two teams of nine, but fewer can play in the kids version of this game. The history of rounders is amazing long and is the sixteenth century British version of a bat and ball game that dates back to “the dawn of time”. In theory, it is a descendant of the bat and ball games played by our “cavemen” ancestors.
Playing rounders will give you a feel for what baseball is like. Baseball is an ever forgiving game. Baseball is also a great game, even known as the American pastime. It seems that everyone loves baseball at least sometime in their lives, so give your children a first step into that world by playing rounders with them in the summer.
Baseball is played on a field with three bases and a home plate. The team on offense has a player at home plate (called the “hitter” or “batter”) trying to hit the ball with a baseball bat.
3. Tennis
Tennis is a sport that is unpopular in the U.S. Its not a sport for the wealthy but its viewed as such. Tennis is a game for all . It is a game for everyone to enjoy. Tennis is the best individual sport in the world. It brings together every aspect of the mind, body, heart and soul of a player.
Tennis is nowadays once again an Olympic sport. It has become very popular and is played at all levels of society, by all ages, and in almost all countries worldwide.
4. Pitch and Putt
Pitch and putt is played with just a wedge and putter. The game is played on a 9 or 18 hole course where the maximum distance from tee to green is 70 metres; an 18-hole course cannot exceed 1,000 metres. These courses are ideal for children to play on and get their first taste of a game like golf where the aim is to position the ball precisely, at put it into the hole at the end of each pitch.
Pitch and Putt is a sport for all ages from seven to seventy, so why not give it a try? You may be pleasantly surprised.
5. Handball
Handball is almost perfectly suited for children’s play, and is great to play outside in summer. With almost no necessary equipment, the game can provide hours of fun and exercise at little or no cost. It is a hugely successful sport in Sweden and is one of the free sport games where you have to shoot and dodge the ball. You can only score if it was your serve.
The team with the most goals wins the game,which is played on a court which is 40 m long by 20 wide, with goals at each end. Each team has 6 players and 1 goal keeper on the court.
Handball is the parent sport of Racquetball. If you know Racquetball, handball has much of the same rules. The origin is gaelic, but it is like squash with no raquettes.
General game rules and the goal of the game are similar to football. Handball is an enjoyable sporting activity for everyone. Those children who may shy away from traditional team sports or athletics because of a lack of confidence or self-judged lack of skill, often relish the opportunity to play a game such as handball.
The Kids to Teens Blog is where you will find many more articles like this one. For example we have recently posted a great article about ball games for kids.
These are just a few of the games kids might enjoy playing in the summer. Here is a list of some of our ideas:-
- racquetball
- Coca Cola League Football for kids
- kids baseball
- quoits
