Barnyard party games

Fun barnyard party games for little kids

How about an animal treasure hunt or animal charades? Don't forget feeding time, fishing in the duck pond or four corners fun with some funny animal noises!

Your little guests will love these farm party games, so let's open the barn doors and start helping poor little Bo Peep...

Barnyard party games

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep...
And your little kids are going to find them! Print out a batch of cards, with a picture of a sheep. Cut them up and "hide" them around the house, in the yard or garden.

The children have to run about and find as many as they can - so make sure there are enough for each child to find a few.

Check out these Farm Party Themes.

Animal treasure hunt
Another finding game could feature small plastic animals hidden in the same way - pigs, horses, cows and so on.

For this game, prepare some stickers as a reward. Each sticker could say "I found a..." with a space for the name of an animal.

Once a child has found an animal, they bring it to you, and you give them a sticker, filling in the name of the animal.

Kids love those stickers!

Feed the pigs
Blow up some pink balloons and draw some piggy faces on them. Make them even more realistic by adding a little twisted pink ribbon for a tail! Pop them all into a large cardboard box.

Scatter lots of multicolored plastic playpen balls (this is your pig feed!) around the box. Each child has thirty seconds to throw as many balls into the box, one by one, as they can.

The winner is the child who manages to throw the most balls into the pig's pen!

Animal charades
You can get the parents involved in this barnyard party game. Prepare a set of cards, each with the name of an animal:

• cow
• horse
• chicken
• duck
• rabbit
• cat
• dog
• bull
• donkey
• sheep
• goat

Your enterprising grown-up volunteers pretend to be the animal, with some funny movements and then sounds, and the children must guess which animal they are.

You might like to let some of the children act out the charades too!

Animal four corners
A good barnyard party game for lots of kids. You'll need pictures of four different animals, and some animal themed music. Tape each picture into a corner of the room, so that you have a "horse corner", a "sheep corner" a "piggy corner" and a "chicken corner" for example.

Ask the kids which noise each animal makes. Then start the music and let the kids dance about.

When the music stops, the children must choose a corner and run to it. Then the game leader must make one of the animal noises - either neighing, or baa-ing, or snorting or clucking.

Any children in the corner of that animal are out! Then start the music again, and the game continues until there are no children left.

Go fish!
Prepare a large bowl of water and a magnetic fishing set. Let each child catch a fish, and give them a little prize when they land their catch! Simple and fun.

Just make sure you remove the water at the end of the game to keep baby or toddler guests safe.

Sack race
Canvas sacks or pillow cases are ideal for this game. All you need are the sacks, a start line, a finish line, and a whistle!

You can play this barnyard party game with all the kids together, or in pairs.

Add a little fun by getting pairs of kids to jump to one end of the course in their sacks, collect a stuffed animal ball, run back to the start to throw the toy into a box, run back to their sack, and jump back to the start line - phew! Demonstrate this one first before you start the official game.

More barnyard party game ideas

You could also organize an egg and spoon race, using hard-boiled eggs or ping-pong balls.

Sing some farmyard songs:

• The farmer's in the dell
• Mary had a little lamb
• Little Bo Peep
• Home on the range
• and of course - Old MacDonald had a farm!

If you have, or can borrow, some farmyard building games or activities, set them up in a play area for the kids to use when they arrive, or for younger guests or siblings to play with.

Craft ideas include making animal masks or coloring in. A mixture of active barnyard party games as well as quieter acitivies like these is often the best kind of mix for little kids.