Fun Outdoor Games for Fourth of July and Summer Events

I’ve written a lot about different Fourth of July activities and crafts over the years (see links below) but one thing I haven’t touched on much is the Fourth of July party. A backyard hangout and barbecue is a classic event, so why not bring some fun outside with red, white and blue games the whole family can play?

Games like these can help develop fine motor skills, and getting kids up and moving is always a good idea. If adults join in, so much the better.

Six Clever Sisters has collected a dozen fun Fourth of July games you can make for the backyard to play for the holiday or any time during the summer.

A lot of these are regular sorts of backyard games like hitting targets with squirt guns or tossing balls into buckets, but given a red, white and blue twist for the patriotic holidays.

These games would be fun throughout the year regardless of whether you put a patriotic spin on them.

For example the tic tac toe game shown here, which is from Hey Let’s Make Stuff, would be cute with x’s and o’s painted in any colors you like. And of course you could make it even easier and just play on the sidewalk with red, white and blue chalk if you don’t have a ready supply of wooden letters.

Check out all the ideas for backyard party games for the Fourth of July at Six Clever Sisters.

Looking for more things to do for the Fourth of July with kids? Check out these posts from previous years for even more inspiration:

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

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