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13 best family beach games

Families who play together, stay together. Get your grin on with these imaginative beach games.

Published: 27/03/2022

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You won’t catch us sunbathing on the beach. Why lie around when you could be surfing, beachcombing or rock-pooling? But sometimes the best beach days are the ones when you go back to basics and just play together. Here are some of our favourites.

French cricket

A great game for the beach, campsites and the garden, French cricket is a simplified version of cricket that’s super fun for all ages. It can be played with either a cricket bat or tennis racket. 

The batter stands, legs together, with the bat or racket in front of them, protecting their legs. Another player takes the ball and bowls it to the batter, trying to hit the legs below the knees. All other players stand spaced around the batter. The batter is out if the ball hits their legs below the knees, if it’s caught with two hands or caught with one hand after one bounce.

The ball must be bowled from wherever it is stopped or lands. If the batter hits the ball, they can turn to face the next bowler but, if they miss, they are not allowed to turn around to face the ball.

Beach art

Pick a theme (such as faces, animals or food) and give everyone a time limit to create a beach picture using whatever they can find on the beach. Seaweed is great for hair, stones work well for eyes, even flotsam and jetsam can be woven into your art. Comb the beach for whatever you can find.

If you don’t fancy going up against each other, collaborate with a super-sized family artwork.

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Race track

Best for little kids, my three used to adore this game when they were small. Grab a stick or a spade and draw a race track in the sand. It can be as simple or as complex as you choose, but the kids always went wild when we added in spirals and loops. Up the ante by adding in jumps (mounds of sand), obstacles and forfeits (the sillier the better).

If your kids are different ages, get the older ones top help design the course and dream up forfeits.

Sharks and islands

Draw a really large square in the sand with paths or lines inside it to run along. Include a few ‘island’ squares (or use rocks if it’s a rocky beach) that link to the lines. Also add a ‘jail’ square in the corner.

Choose someone to be the shark whose job it is to tag the fish (everyone else). The fish can only ‘swim’ on the lines but the shark can go anywhere. The islands are safe but fish can only rest on them for five seconds. If the shark tags the fish they have to go to jail. Other fish can free the jailed fish if they can reach them and tag them. The shark wins if all the fish are jailed.

Skimming 

Find the flattest stone you can – slightly rounded, not too heavy but not too light. Hold the stone between your thumb and first finger, resting on your second finger and using a side-arm action flick the stone towards the water. Crouch as low to the water as possible and create spin on the stone as it leaves your hand by whipping your wrist as you let go. The person who manages to bounce the stone off the water the most number of times wins.

Sand art charades

Divide into two teams and pick an artist to start drawing in the sand for each team. The first artist should whisper to the other team what they plan to draw and then have a minute to draw it in the sand for their team mates to guess. No gestures or noises to give away clues allowed! Once guessed, play switches to the other team.

If you just want to do it for fun and not competition, just chose one artist at a time to draw for the whole group.

Double Splash

Good for giggles and screams of hilarity, this light-hearted throwing game can be played with two or more people. Player one tosses a stone high and into the sea. Once it is launched the other players can launch their own stone, aiming for it to hit the sea at exactly the same time as the lead stone. The aim is to create a single plop and avoid at all costs a double. The thrower who gets the timing closest and avoids a ‘double splash’ then becomes the lead thrower.

Scavenger hunt

Beaches are the perfect place for scavenger hunts. Little kids always love them and, if you get creative with the tasks, big kids can enjoy them too.  There are a few ways to play, either start with a list and send everyone off to scavenge for the lot. Or name the first item and make it a race to see who comes back with the most appropriate thing first. Set them some boundaries about how far they can go, and send them on their way.

But often, the best way to scavenge is to wing it with wacky ideas that you make up on the spot and are unique to your family. ‘A piece of seaweed that looks the most like Grandpa’s beard’ for example, or ‘something Mum would wear as jewellery’. Marks can then be awarded for ingenuity and creativity.

Dam building

Brilliant for getting your kids working together as a team, there are a few ways to build a dam on a beach. Probably the most fun is if your beach has a river, stream or trickle leading to the sea. You can then either plan to dam it or divert it. Alternatively, work together to keep the sea at bay for as long as you can before the tide comes in. 

Roundnet

The only game we’ve included that requires a purchase, we couldn’t resist including this high energy beach or garden game that is a winner with active teenagers. 

Two teams battle it out by bouncing a ball volleyball-style off the trampoline-like net. Easy to learn (and even easier to get hooked on), it calls for fast reactions, athleticism and strategy. Expect dramatic dives and spectacular spikes. Check out Spikeball sets and learn more about this fast-growing sport at Spikeball's website.

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Beach toss

Dig a hole in the sand and draw a square measuring about one metre cubed around it and dig a semi-circular trench about just beyond it. Walk 10 paces back from the hole and draw a line in the sand. Now, grab a beanbag, ball or flip-flop and compete to see who can win the most points by lobbing it into the hole. A ball in the hole wins three points. If it lands in the square, it’s one point. If it goes in the trench, you lose a point.

Volleyball 

Beach volleyball is great fun to play if you’re a big family or can team up with friends to play three-a-side. Teens love it, but smaller children can get involved too if you switch to using an inflatable beach ball (not one for windy days). 

Play with a net if you’re serious or a line in the sand if you’re not and sketch out a basic court in the sand. Heroic dives encouraged.

Sand baking and construction sites

Younger children love the beach for its creative play opportunities (it is after all the biggest sandpit they’ll ever experience). Try making sand cakes or pizzas, with stones, shells and seaweed as delicious toppings and spades and sticks as kitchen utensils.

If your kids are digger-mad, bring along a selection of construction vehicles and help them create a whole building site, complete with quarry and roads. 

 

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