Patio Furniture Cushions

What You Need:

• 2 patio cushions per child
• 2-8 kids

Have you ever thought of using patio chair cushions for a friendly outdoor race? It’s a resourceful way to get your kids moving around on a warm spring or summer day. The goal of the cushion race is for each competitor to use two patio chair cushions to go from the starting line of the race to the finish line as fast as possible without touching the grass. They can only stand on their patio cushions.

Choose a start and finish point with a clear path between them. Each competitor gets two patio chair cushions. They are required to stand on one of their cushions at all times. Each child must set down one of their outdoor cushions, step onto it, then turn around to pick up the other chair cushion behind them. Then they place it in front of them to walk on and complete the action again. The first one to the finish line wins.

What You Need:

• 1 patio cushion
• 4 patio chairs
• 2 8’x10’ outdoor rugs
• Stopwatch
• Sunshine!
• 4 to 8 kids

Capture the Cushion is a team-based game, so it’s best to have at least three kids per team. Both teams try to capture the cushion and keep it in their team’s home base. One person will use the stopwatch to keep track of how long each team is in possession of the cushion. The team that has possession of the outdoor seat cushion longest during a 15-minute game wins that round. Teams play a total of three 15-minute games to determine the winner.

How do you turn your backyard into a Capture the Cushion Stadium? Use two chairs to mark a small section at one end of your yard, and do the same at the other end of the yard. You’re creating an end zone, which serves as each team’s home base. The space in between each home base is considered free zone. At one corner of each home base, place an 8’x10’ outdoor rug. The outdoor rug serves as the team’s jail.

Place the patio cushion in the middle of your backyard; each team will try to capture the cushion and bring it to their home base and keep it there for as long as possible. However, if a player is tagged while holding the cushion in a free zone, they must drop the cushion where they are and go to the opposite team’s jail.

If every member of one team ends up in jail, one person is allowed out of jail after a minute. At the end of each 15-minute interval, add up how much time each team possessed the patio cushion and the team with the longest possession time wins!

What You Need:

• 1 patio cushion per team
• 4-8 kids in teams of 2

How about a friendly game of Cushion Catch? Teams are made up of 2 players with one chair cushion per team. Each teams’ goal is to move from the starting line to the finish line as fast as possible, while playing catch. The first team to finish wins!

Seems simple, right? Not so fast! The person holding the cushion is not allowed to move, while the person not holding the cushion moves out toward the finish line to catch the cushion from their teammate. Once the cushion is thrown to the second player, then the person who threw the cushion is allowed to move and the person who caught the cushion must stay still. Teams continue with this pattern until they cross the finish line.

It is up to each team how far they want to throw their outdoor seat cushions. The farther you toss the faster you go, but the higher the risk because if the cushion ever hits the ground, that team must start over at the starting line!

What You Need:

• Patio cushions
• Music player (iPad, iPhone or another music playing device)
• Speakers
• Sunshine!
• 4 to 10 kids

When the weather is warm, kids are always looking for games to play outside. Have you ever thought of bringing traditional indoor games to the backyard? Try playing Musical Cushions. The goal of the game is to be the last one standing. The game starts with the one less outdoor seat cushion than kids playing the game (if there are eight kids, you’ll start with seven cushions). One adult is in charge of starting and stopping the music.

Place the cushions in a circle and start the music. Players will walk clockwise around the cushions. Once the music stops, players try to beat the other players to a patio cushion. One player will be left without a cushion, and that person is out of the game. At the start of the next round, remove one cushion, and continue until there is a winner. They are the Musical Cushion Champion!

Looking for ways to make this game new and exciting for kids? First, change up how fast or slow you turn the music off. Try starting and stopping it really fast one round. In other rounds, let the music play for a while leaving them walking many circles around the patio chair cushions. Another option is having kids do things other than walk around the circle of cushions. Encourage them to work on their dancing skills and dance around the cushions to the music. Hopping on one foot around the circle or bear crawling are other creative options.

What You Need:

• 8 patio chair cushions
• 1 kid

This is an awesome game to play with babies who are crawling with confidence or starting to walk. It will also start to teach them to be aware of objects as they get more comfortable moving around. If you are in the backyard looking for something to do, we recommend giving Cushion Maze a try. Use the patio chair cushions to create a path, and be sure to have a start and end to this cushion maze.

The purpose of the game is to have the baby crawl or walk through the maze you create with patio cushions from start to finish. Create any type of maze you want. Throw in challenging turns here and there so they realize they have to turn at certain times in order to complete the maze. Help them through the maze as quickly as they can and consider doing it more than once to see if they can make it through faster.