10 Refreshing Fun Water Activities For Families

Summertime brings hot weather. And what better way to cool off than to join in on some fun water activities as a family? Listed below are 10 refreshing fun water activities that you can do together with your family to beat the heat this summer!

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1. Watering the flowers together

You might not really think of watering the flowers as a fun water activity. But my kids enjoy it. We turn on the hose and let them take turns with the hose watering the flowers and garden around the yard. Sometimes it may even turn into a hose fight on an especially hot afternoon!

2. Purchase a Hydro Twist Sprinkler

The Hydro Twist Sprinkler may just be one of our favorite water activities to do as a family in our backyard. It connects nicely to any garden hose and has multiple areas on the sprinkler where water shoots out. My older kids enjoy it and my two year old giggles every time the water shoots in his face.

3. Bounce house with water!

Do your family a huge favor and go purchase a bounce house from Bounce Land. It’s a few hundred dollars depending on the type of bounce house you would purchase. But boy is it worth every penny. We bought this bounce house a few years ago for our twins birthday. The cool part about this bounce house is that they can enjoy it dry as a normal bounce house with a slide.

But it also has a hose component that will shoot out water and completely changes the vibe of the bounce house! It’s a lot of fun to toss balls to them from outside house, or cheer them on as they fly down the soaking wet slide.

4. Get creative with spray bottles

My wife frequents the Dollar Store for empty spray bottles. Fill those with water and all of a sudden, your kid thinks they have all the power in the world. They can water plants, spray their parents, spray their sibling, or maybe spray themselves. It’s a fun way to encourage creativity, start an impromptu water battle or simply put a smile on their face.

5. Car wash

We have several push cars that we have acquired from Step2 over the years. Our kids love getting a bucket of water, an old washcloth and carrying out a full rendition of what a car wash looks like. They wash the push cars and easily spend an hour in the front yard washing their cars while mommy and daddy wash their cars. It’s a fun way to get chores done, but keep the family together!

6. Membership at your local Y

If you have a pool in your backyard, take advantage of that as a family during those hot summer days! Unfortunately, we do not have a pool in our backyard. We have plenty of fun water activities to keep us busy, but sometimes you just want to jump in the pool. We are fortunate to live close to a YMCA.

Typically, we will purchase a family membership for the summer so we can use the pool facilities. It’s a great way to get exercise, spend time together as a family and enjoy a heated pool! We cancel the membership for the rest of the year and re-instate the membership during the summer. It helps us save money throughout the rest of the year!

7. Water beads

If you have never played with water beads, you are missing out. You can buy a container of water beads fairly cheap on Amazon and it provides hours of entertainment. We have a water table in our back yard that we pour some of the water beads into the water table and watch our kids go nuts! The beads start out small, but when they sit in the water, they grow in size. They come in all sorts of colors and they are very slippery to hold.

I will warn you: If you play with water beads outside, be prepared for a mess in your yard. We ended up mowing over dozens of water beads. Oops.

8. Water gun fights

Who doesn’t love a good water gun fight? We purchase cheap water guns from Target or even the Dollar Store. However, I will say that our favorite water guns are the fast-fill water blasters. They are easy to re-fill that even our kids can do it! Make it a fun family competition. Girls against boys. Parents against kids. Loser has to wash the dishes. Make it interesting.

9. Boat craft competition

When we were quarantined back in 2020, we did a lot of crafts together as a family. One of our favorite crafts was to take popsicle sticks and have the kids glue them together and make a boat out of them. We then headed to our favorite creek in the woods a mile from our house and put our boats in the water to see how they would do. To my surprise, they floated down the river! We put our boots on and walked along the creek watching our boats float happily along!

*Please be mindful that if you do go to a creek or water source, please watch your children and have them wear flotation devices if need be.*

10. Water balloon fights

If you aren’t into a water gun fight, then what about switching it up with some water balloons? You could even do a simple water balloon toss as a family too. First one to drop the water balloon loses! We prefer to buy the Zuru Bunch O Balloons. This allows you to fill them and tie them off extremely fast compared to the days when I was a kid!

There are also reusable magnetic water balloons that Heart + Home recommend as one of their Top 3 Summer Activities To Beat the Heat!

If you haven’t read Water Safety Tips For Parents yet, please do so now and be careful out there this summer!