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Party Planning - Games -
Kid's Barnyard/Farm Party Games
A farm or barnyard theme party provides children with
bushels of fun. If you can, provide some bales of hay; your small
hayseeds will enjoy climbing and balancing on them.
Dress the little farm hands up with
Child Size Cowboy Hat and Bandanas. Add a piece of
hay to each little mouth, and take lots of pictures. Take the
time to have each child pose alone, and with the birthday child
for pictures on a tractor or peeking out
of the barn. The priceless photos can then be mailed to each guest
with a thank you note at a later date. Make sure that each child
gets a turn at driving the tractor to the back forty, and plan to give
the children plenty of free time to play down on the farm. Encourage lots of imaginative play.
ANIMAL SOUNDS CONTEST
Have
children stand in front of the group and make their best barnyard animal
noises. For older kids use a panel of judges to later award prizes for
the best, longest, shortest, loudest, quietest, most obnoxious,
silliest, least like an animal.....until everyone wins and has a good
laugh in the process!
PINATA FUN
Bring your party to a close with a Animal Pinata
(Cow, Horse, Pig & etc.). We’ve yet to find a child who doesn’t want to grab some goodies from
one at a party! Use a child-sized pitch fork or hoe as the
"bat", and a
Bandanas
as the blindfold.
ANIMAL
HUNT
Hide inexpensive, plastic barnyard
animals or small stuffed ones around a room in the house or in the yard.
Give each child a bag to place their animals in or make Cowhide buckets
from margarine containers. Paint containers white, add black spots to
look like cowhide. Add a rope handle. These make fun treat buckets too.
DUCK DUCK GOOSE
This racing-chasing game is guaranteed fun for ducks and geese alike. It
also adapts readily to any party theme. All of the children except one
sit in a circle facing each other. The remaining person goes around the
circle, tapping each child gently on the head and saying "duck." When
the tapper says "goose," the child whose head was just touched jumps up
and chases the tapper around the circle. The tapper in turn tries to get
all the way back to the goose's spot without getting tagged by the
goose. If the tapper succeeds, the goose becomes the new tapper and the
game continues. But if the goose catches the tapper, the tapper
continues his or her walk around the circle.
WHEEL BARROW RACES
Divide your party guests into two equal teams in two single file lines.
Have the leader of each line get on their hands and knees. At the start
of go the player behind them will grab his/her ankles and hold up their
legs so they can only walk on their hands. Race to a designated area and
have them reverse on the way back. Continue until one team finishes
first.
BURLAP SACK RACES
Divide your guest into two equal teams. Give each team a burlap bag that
they step into and have them race to a specified distance and back.
Continue until one team has completely finished. The one team who
finishes first wins.
EGG TOSS
This game must be played outdoors for it gets a little messy. Divide
your guests into two equal teams. Have them line up in two horizontal
lines facing each other about 2 feet apart. The person facing the other
will be partners. Give one line an unboiled egg. At the sound of
"go" the partner with the egg will toss it to the other. They
must catch it without it breaking. If someone breaks the egg or does not
catch it, they are out. Before they toss it again they both must take
one step backwards. Repeat this until only one team is left.
You may substitute water balloons instead of real eggs.
UNTANGLE THE KNOT
Have the kid's stand in a circle facing inward. Everyone extends his or
her right-hand into the middle of the circle and takes hold of someone
else's hand. Then, they do the same with their left-hands. The object of
the game is to see if they can untangle the "knot" by ducking
under people, stepping over them or turning around. No matter what
happens, they can't let go of hands!
PASS THE HAT
Have the children sit in a circle. Start
the music, as the music plays a Hat is passed around the circle. When the music stops the
person holding the Hat is Out. Continue until only one child remains.
TOMMY MINDS THE FARM
(use birthday child's name)
Pretend is a favorite activity for
children, so you are going to pretend that Old McDonald has to go away
for the day and that Tommy (birthday child's name) is going to mind the
farm. Start by pretending to drive to the farm. Then when you get to the
farm, Tommy is going to take a walk around the farm to see that all the
animals are happy. When you met the horse. Say, Hi, Horsey. When the
Horse answers he says " Quack, Quack! Pretend to be puzzled and say
" I thought a horse went "Neigh, Neigh"! , Then visit the
Cow. and say, "How Now, Cow". The cow says "Oink, Oink.
Continue by mixing up the animals sounds. (Pig says "Honk",
Goose says "Meow", Goat say "Rrruff", Cat say
"Baa Baa", Dog says "Cluck Cluck", Sheep say
"Buzz, Buzz", Duck says "Ribbit", Frog says "
Cock-a-doodle-doo", Turkey says "Neigh", & etc.)
Pretend to be very confused and say "Something is really wrong here
on the farm". Then pretend that you get a letter from Old McDonald
that says that the animals like to play tricks on people. Just in case
they try something funny, here is a song to help keep track of things.
Then sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm".
PASS THE BARNYARD BUDDY
Play the same as "hot potato"
using a barnyard animal bean
bag. Start the music and have the kid's
pass the Animal around the circle. When the music stops the child
holding the Animal is out. Continue until only one child remains. Give a
prize to the winner.
BARNYARD ANIMAL FACTS
Make a list of barnyard animal facts with
true/false answers. See who can get the most correct answers.
PRETZEL FARM ANIMALS
Let the kids make Pretzel Farm
Animals with the following recipe:
1 package yeast, 4 cups flour, 1½ cups warm water, 1 egg, 1 tbsp.
Sugar, 1 tbsp. Salt. In a large bowl mix yeast, water, sugar and
salt. Stir in flour. Knead on table until dough is smooth.
After the kids have washed their hands, give each child a ball of dough
to work with. Let them be creative as they shape the dough into
animal shapes. Brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with salt.
Let the kids move on to the next adventure while the pretzels bake in a
425* oven for 15 minutes or until browned.
BARNS ON FIRE RELAY - Outdoors
Set up a chair on one side of the yard with an empty wash tub or other
large container. On the chair tape a picture of a barn. Divide your
guests into 2 -4 equal teams. On the opposite side of the yard Line each
team up. Give the first child in the line a colored
plastic pail filled with water (have extra pails of water
ready),
cowboy
hat, cowboy
vest, &
Bandanas
( or you could also use a pair of overall
& bandana). The relay starts and the first child in each
group must put on the vest, bandana, & hat then grab the pail of
water and race to the barn chair. Dump the water in the wash tub and run
back to the start line. Take off the vest, bandana, & hat. Give the
empty pail to the adult to be refilled with water. The next child then
does the same until all members of the team have completed the coarse.
The first team to finish or the team with the most water in the wash tub
can be declared the winners! Give small prize to each member of the
winning team.
Variation 1: To play indoors use
blue tissue paper to represent water in the pail & the kid's will
have to throw the tissue paper into the wash tub.
Variation 2: Will need to play this one outside. Place an empty
bucket on the chair, give each team a bucket filled with water. Give
each child an empty paper cup. Place the bucket of water next to the
last person in line. When you say "Ready, Set, Fight the
Fire", the last person in line must fill their cup from the bucket
then fill the cup of the next person in line, who in turn fills the cup
of the next person in line from their cup, when the person at the
beginning of the line has their cup filled they must then, run, jump,
hop
to the bucket on the other side of the room and pour the water into the
empty bucket. (The amount of water they get into the bucket, counts more
than speed). They then return to their team and go to the end of the
line. They now fill their cup and start the process over again. Play
continues until all members of the team have placed water into the
bucket and returned to the end of the line. Each team must finish before
a winner is announced. The winner is the team who has filled the empty
bucket the fullest. Use a measuring pitcher to determine the winner.
MUSICAL HATS
Play this game using the same
concept as the classic game of musical chairs…one less hat than there
are children for each round. Place a pile of
Cowboy
Hats on a table that the kids must walk around while
the music is playing. When the music is turned off, the kids must
scramble to put on a hat. The child without a hat must leave the game,
and the game continues with one less hat until there is one child
remaining – the winner.
ANIMAL PACKAGE WRAP GAME
Wrap a box of animal fruit snacks
with newspaper or butcher paper. Continue wrapping layer upon
layer around the package, so that the kids can unwrap it one sheet at a
time. After you have added approximately 12-15 layers, wrap the
final layer with real birthday paper and a fancy bow. Play some
music, and tell the kids that when the music stops, whoever is holding
the package gets to unwrap the package (be specific that they may only
open one layer.) Continue playing the game until the final layer
is removed. The winner gets to give each person a package of the
fruit snacks…so everyone wins!
FUN DANCES FOR KID'S
- The Chicken Dance
- The Bunny
Hop
- The Hokey Pokey
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