Your tween’s birthday is here, and you need to find some fun outdoor birthday party games for tweens. We have the best games for your tween’s party right here.
Finding activities and games requires a little thought. It is the in-between age of being a child and a teenager. They still want to have silly fun, but yet need more engagement than children.
The good news is that there are plenty of games that fit these criteria so your next tween birthday party will be a fun success.
We have put together some of the top outdoor birthday party games for tweens. These games have the right mixture of silliness, fun, and amusement to entertain any tweens. We have games for boys and girls, but you can really use any of them for any party.
We recommend having a few games picked out for each party and when you go with any of the games from our list, your tweens will have nothing but fun.
Table of Contents
Outdoor Boy’s Birthday Party Games
Tweens are at the age where they will want to be involved with their party organization. With this list of great games for tween boys, they will be sure to find a few they want to play.
They may even have their own games to make up or have tweaks they can make to these games. All that matters is that they have fun, and our list is the perfect place to start.
1. Wink Assassin
All you need are a group of boys and space to play. The game involves one assassin who will secretly kill others by winking at them.
Pieces of paper with ‘player’ written on them along with one piece that says ‘assassin’ are placed in a jar. Every player picks a paper to find out their role in the game.
Within a designated space, players walk around looking at each other. If you get winked at, you need to count to five in your head and then feign death.
Players must watch others to identify the assassin. If a player wants to guess, they say, “I accuse” and they must point to who they think the assassin is.
If they point to the person and they are right the game ends. If not, the game continues until the assassin is identified. The accuser that guessed incorrectly is eliminated.
2. Find The Leader
Have the tweens form a circle, leaving enough space between each player for them to move freely. One person chosen to be “it” is sent from the room while the others decide who gets to be the leader.
Once picked, the player outside the room returns and needs to guess who the leader is. The leader is to make gestures or moves for the others to imitate.
The “it” person stands in the center of the circle and watches all the others to identify the leader. The other players need to protect their leader by not looking directly at them all the time.
Once “it” guesses the leader, they become “it” for another round. Tweens can make this as fun as they want by performing silly moves and gestures.
3. Balloon Stomp
All you need are some balloons and some string. Divide the group into even teams. Each team gets a different color of balloons. Each player on the team ties a balloon to their leg, making sure the string is long, so the balloon is not near their foot.
The goal of the game is to pop the opposing team’s balloon without getting yours popped. The game can be played several times as long as you get enough differently colored balloons.
4. Wacky Duck
You need to have a big space for this game to be the most fun. Have players sit in a big circle, with one person in the center.
Using a blindfold, cover the center person’s eyes and spin them around a few times. While they are spinning, the others change seats.
Once everyone is in their seat, the center person, still blindfolded, uses a wooden spoon to feel for the players. Once they find someone, they sit in their lap.
The player needs to quack like a duck in a silly voice and “it” has to guess who they are sitting on. If they get it right, they take their place in the circle, and if not, they continue to another lap until they guess correctly.
5. Knockdown
To start, arrange 25 party cups in a pyramid or other fun structure. You will also need lightweight sponge balls for this game.
They must be lighter than a tennis ball. You can find the perfect type of sponge balls for this game on Amazon.
Each player needs to stand a specified distance in front of the pyramid, and they must try and knock down as many cups as they can with three balls.
6. Sock Wrestling
This is a silly game that boys of all ages love, even tweens. All you need is a pair of socks. If you want to make sure each boy has their own pair, you can grab a bulk pack from Amazon for a great deal.
This is essentially a wrestling match, except instead of pinning each other to win, you need to get the socks off your opponent before they remove yours.
You may want to have an adult as a referee and make a few ground rules before you start. It also helps to have a specified area such as a marked-out circle, that players have to stay within.
7. Wrecking Ball
You will need at least 6 players for this minute-to-win-it game that tweens love. You will also need filled water bottles, tennis balls, and large stockings.
Divide the group into teams. One player from each team will face off against each other. Line the water-filled bottles up in two lines. You will want to have at least seven for each row.
Each team gets a tennis ball to put in the end of their stocking. The other end of the stocking goes over the player’s head. The end with the tennis ball will be hanging in front of their face.
Using their head and tennis ball like a wrecking ball, the players need to knock over the bottles. The winner will be the player that knocks all their bottles over before the other team player.
You can also play this as individuals, where each boy gets to see how many they can knock down in a minute. The boy with the highest number of knocked bottles is the winner.
8. How’s It Hangin
Grab a banana, an orange, some string, and a hula hoop. This is a game to be played by one layer at a time. Tie the string to the banana and then tie the other end to the front of one player’s pants.
The string needs to be long enough, so the banana touches the ground. The orange will be placed at the other end of one yard, and the hula hoop at the other.
Using the banana, the player has to move the orange across to the hula hoop. They will have a minute to do this. This is best played on a solid surface like a deck or patio, as grass can make it harder to roll the orange.
9. Speed Stacker
You will need a small table for this, such as a card gaming table and at least 50 party cups. Players get one minute to stack as many cups as they can in a pyramid shape. The highest number of cups used is the winning pyramid.
10. Head Pop
Get balloons of two different colors. Ideally you want between 15 and 20 of each color. Tie them to string and hang them around the yard from fences, trees, or poles.
Hang them all at different lengths to make the game more challenging. Taking two baseball hats, secure a pin into the top of each one. Each team gets a color assigned to them.
The first player for each team gets 15 seconds to pop as many of their color balloons as they can using the pin in their hat. Every 15 seconds, the team needs to pass the hat to another player, and this continues until all the colors for one team are popped.
No hands or feet can be used. Have an adult or other non-player standing by to shout out “change” every 15 seconds.
Outdoor Girl’s Birthday Party Games
In the same way that tween boys will want to have a say in the organization of their party, so will the girls. Let them browse this list of fun outdoor birthday party games for tweens so they can pick the ones they can enjoy the most with their friends.
As with the boys, let the girls make their own modifications to any of the games too.
1. Junk In the Trunk
You will want at least 6 players for this jumping game. You also need an empty tissue box, a belt, tape, and some ping pong balls. Remove the plastic from the tissue box, so it has a clear opening.
Attach the box to the belt with tape. One player at a time, needs to put the belt on so that the box is at their back. Fill the tissue box with the ping pong balls.
The player gets one minute to shake and jump around to get the balls out of the box. The winner will be the girl that gets them all out of the box.
2. Fortune Teller Game
All you need are pens and some paper. Cut the paper into strips, making sure they are all roughly the same size. Every girl gets five strips of paper and a pen.
They have to write their own name on the first one, a number on the second, a place on the third, a job on the fourth, and a boy they know on the last one.
Apart from their names, encourage the girls to come up with wacky and unusual answers. They must keep their answers secret from the group.
Have four jars or hats handy and place the pieces of paper into the appropriate jar (one for names, one for numbers, and so on). Taking turns, a girl draws a strip of paper from each bag and then reads the fortune out loud as follows:
- (name) will be a (job), will live in (place), be married to (boy’s name) and will have (number) children. The more unusual the answers are, the funnier the fortunes will be.
3. Makeup Artist
A great game for girls of all ages, is makeup artist. This is especially popular with tweens as this is the age when they take a real interest in makeup.
Rather than have them use your makeup, you can get some affordable kits from Amazon for them to use. Make sure they have hair accessories, perfumes, lipstick, powder, and more.
Unless you will be supervising, avoid eye makeup as this can cause accidents. Also make sure that you use makeup that can be easily washed away with water.
Divide the girls into groups of models and makeup artists. The fun part is that the makeup artists get to be blindfolded. Then the girls swap roles, and the winner will be the girl that did the best makeup job.
4. Steal The Stickers
Buy a bunch of stickers from Amazon for this game. Make sure you get larger sized stickers. You also want to give each girl an index card divided up into boxes.
Each box needs to be labeled with each girl’s name. This game is played throughout the party. When a guest arrives, place 10 stickers on their back.
During the party, the goal is to get a sticker from each girl’s back to complete your index card. The first girl to get a full index card wins.
5. Eat The Donut
String and a dozen donuts are all you need for this game. Find a place in the backyard to hang some string or a rope between two locations. You can use a clothesline if you have one.
The line should be about 6 feet above the ground, but it can be lower depending on the height of your guests. Tie a piece of string to each donut and hang them from the rope or clothesline.
Make sure the donuts are placed far enough apart so each girl has room to move around. With hands behind their back, each girl has to try and eat the donut. First to complete the challenge wins.
6. Sleeping Beauty Game
This is a great game about resilience and a bunch of fun for girls. Each girl will get to have a turn as sleeping beauty. Have them lay on a blanket in the yard. They must lie completely still and cannot talk or move.
Taking turns, the other girls get 15 seconds to try and make “sleeping beauty” move, talk, or laugh. They are not allowed to touch her but can tell jokes and say silly things to get them to smile or laugh.
7. Act It Out
Grab a pen and some paper as well as props. You can grab stuff from around the house or buy some fun props from Amazon. Cut the paper into strips so that each girl can have one.
Have them each write out a funny scene on the paper and put them all in a jar. Scenes can include a wedding, a soccer game, or they can create an item such as a car.
Divide the girls into teams. Each team takes a turn to pick out a paper strip. Then using the props and items around them as well as each other, they have to create the scene or item.
A judge (you) will have to decide which one does the scene best for a point. Whichever team has the most points after all the scenes/items have been done is the winner.
8. Medusa
This is great for larger groups and all you need are players and space in the backyard. All the girls need to stand in a circle with their arms around the shoulders of their neighbors.
To start with, all players need to keep their heads bowed down. At the count of three, all girls lift their heads and look at another player.
If two girls find they are looking at each other they have to scream and fall to the floor. This continues until there are only two players left, who both win.
9. Would You Rather
Give each girl a notepad or piece of paper to have them write down interesting questions. The questions all have to start with “Would you rather…”. Then two options need to be provided to choose from.
Choices can be silly, gross, and funny, but nothing serious. Have each girl write down at least 5 questions. Then, taking turns, they ask another girl in the circle a question from their list.
An alternative to this is for one girl to read out their questions and each other girl gives their answer. This is fun because not everyone will pick the same answer. The sillier or grosser the options, the funnier the game becomes.
10. Balloon Blow
Get a bunch of balloons on hand for this game and divide the girls into teams of two. The balloons need to be different colors, so each team has a different color balloon.
Each pair has the task of keeping their balloon in the air, by blowing only. The pair that keeps their balloon in the air the longest is the winner. This can be done many times each time with a different partner.
Helpful Tips To Have The Best Outdoor Birthday Party Games For Tweens
The most important thing to remember is that tweens will want to have a say in how their party goes. But they will also need a little help with the organization.
You have a list of great games for both boys and girls for them to choose from, but there are a few other helpful tips that can ensure the party is a success.
- Selection is the key: Make sure there are not only a few different games, but there is also music, and a variety of snacks and drinks too.
- Guidance only: Give the tweens space to play the games alone. Be nearby for supervision and guidance but remember that they are of an age where independence is starting to matter.
- Plan ahead: Get feedback from their friends beforehand too as to what is lame and what is not, so that you can make sure you have only the things they will want to do and play.
Final Thoughts
The tween years are important. Your child is getting older and more independent, but still has child-like needs. Birthday parties for tweens should have the right mix of fun, engagement, and independence.
The tweens need to be able to pick their fun and play without parents watching like hawks. Let your tween pick from our list of outdoor birthday games for tweens, then make sure they have the supplies and game instructions.
You can be around to help them set up and supervise from afar, but let them take over the backyard for fun, frolics, and laughs they will remember for years.