May 25, 2018

Summer Fun Pool Party

Summer Fun Pool Party. This was the last week of school for my younger three kiddos, and as has become our tradition, we hosted a small pool party for the guys and a few of their buddies. Our summer fun pool parties are one of my favorite annual traditions, whether it is for a bunch of kids, or just my own. Since we just hosted a fairly large graduation party for our oldest son, I needed to keep the costs and effort down, but I still wanted it to be special and fun for the kids.

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I knew I wanted to host the party in the backyard, with plenty of room for the kids to run, play, and be goofy kids. Before the party, I went to the store and picked up pool noodles, beach balls, splash balls, light up skipping “rocks”, floats, and more for the pool. I also grabbed several sand buckets for snacks, water balloons, and small sand buckets for the kids to use to make slime in.

The food was simple, but perfect for a group of hungry kids! I sliced watermelon and added it to a tiered tray with colorful lemons, limes, and oranges. {The kids made their own lemon lime snow cones} Chips and bagged snacks filled two sand buckets, while small juice bottles and ice filled another. A bowl of water balloons was left on the table {so the dog didn’t try to eat them}. Next to the table, I set up our Nostalgia Electrics Snow Cone machine…that is always a huge hit at parties!

During the party, the boys splashed in the pool, and threw splash balls at each other like professional baseball players, LOL! Our pool is fairly small, but it has a great pump and jet, so I had the kids row an inflatable raft against the current with floppy pool noodles. They also did neck to neck orange passing, water balloon fights, “rock” skipping, beach ball pool volleyball, and general horse play and foolishness that is so important for kids of all ages. In fact, my hubby and I may have joined in on a lot of the fun {after I put my camera inside}…

Once the kids totally water logged, we brought them all to the outdoor dining table to make slime and moon sand. This was a great activity and party favor in one, and it allowed the kiddos to start calming down before their parents came to pick them up.

This was probably my favorite Summer Fun Pool Party to date, and I cannot wait to have those rowdy kids back over for more fun this summer.

This post has been sponsored by The Genius of Play. {All opinions are purely my own} As a mom of four boys that grew up without designated outdoor recess time, and being a former teacher, I cannot stress the importance of play enough. Children need to have time to wiggle and giggle, laugh, and even fight with each other. They learn through play, and the more time they have to be social outside of structured events the better they will feel. To find out more about how play can benefit your child, check out these six benefits of play from The Genius of Play! Our simple pool party allowed the kids to use their bodies physically, to interact socially, to use their noggins creatively to make up games and create slime. They interacted socially, used communication skills, and most importantly, they developed emotionally. I love when kids can learn and not even realize it. Be sure to follow along The Genius of Play for more amazing ideas to help your little loves grow into well rounded adults!