8 Awesome (And Educational) Pool Activities To Play With Your Kids
Whether you blow up an inflatable pool in your backyard, go to a community pool, or have your own swimming pool at home, you’ll find at least one pool activity from this list that you can play with your kids! These 8 pool activities range from easy and toddler-friendly to challenging and perfect for teens.
This colorful pool activity is perfect for an inflatable pool and younger kids. Fill up your pool with a little water and a bunch of balloons with water and food coloring. Then have your kids smash the water balloons to let out the colored water! They’ll have loads of fun mixing the colors in the water and learn a little bit about color theory in the process.
If you have a hula hoop and dish soap, you can create giant bubbles in your wading pool with your kids! Just mix in the dish soap with water in the pool and pull up the hula hoop to make a bubble that can get as big as your kids! Fun and easy.
Floating boats are always fun to play with in the pool, so why not make a whole bunch of them with a pool noodle, foam sheets, and straws? If you have kids who can craft, include them when making the boats, then let them have fun in the pool. You could even host a boat race!
Instill the love for fishing and learning in your toddler at a young age by playing this cute fishing game in a wading pool. Grab magnetic letters and spread them out in the pool and add other items that are water-related, such as shells, but aren’t magnetic. Stick a magnet at the end of a string on a kid’s fishing pole (or use a simple string on a stick) and have your kid fish up the letter magnets! They’ll learn what is magnetic and what isn’t and you can also practice letter recognition with them. Older kids could even fish out letters to create words!
This swimming activity is great for bigger pools and you can play it with younger kids who are beginning swimmers and/or learning their letters. Write letters on sponges with a permanent marker and throw them into the water. Have your kids swim and collect them. Depending on their age, you could have them arrange the letters in alphabetic order or create words with the sponges they collected.
There are many pool activities that include letters, but what about numbers? This floating numbers pool activity includes wine corks with numbers written on them. Throw them into a pool and have the kids collect them and play various math games, such as putting them in numerical order or finding only odd or even numbers.
7. F.I.S.H
Are you familiar with the HORSE game that’s played with a basketball and a hoop? The water activity FISH works in the same way. The first player starts off the game by doing a task in the water, such as doing a handstand or swimming a full lap underwater. Then the other players try to do the same activity. If someone can’t do the activity, they “earn” the first letter of FISH. Each player takes turns thinking up of a different and challenging move and the game continues until someone spells the whole word FISH first. This game is great for preteens and older kids!
8. Pool Raft Building Activity
This great team-building activity can be done with preteens and older kids. Promote critical thinking and cooperative skills by asking several kids to build a raft using pool noodles and other materials, such as soft form wire, rope, and a small hand drill. If you have a large group of kids, divide them into teams and see what kind of creations they come up with!
For more summer fun, check out 5 DIY Sprinklers to Cool Down Your Kids This Summer, 5 Backyard Activities for Lazy Summer Days, and 50 Pool Floats for adults.
I hope you like these water activities and that you’ll try at least one of these with your kids this summer! What other water activities do you love?
Featured image via Better Homes and Gardens.
I’m Elisa and I live in Austin, Texas with my husband and our two little girls. I used to teach reading and writing, but now I stay at home with my two kiddos and read and write in my spare time. I also love to undertake DIY projects, find new recipes on Pinterest, and dream about someday finally completing our home. Above all, I love to learn about new things and sharing my new-found knowledge with others.
