Make These DIY Yard Games for the 4th of July

Yard games are practically essential for a great 4th of July celebration. The weather is sunny and warm and families and friends gather together for picnics and outdoor fun. If you’d like to play everyone’s favorite yard games at your 4th of July party, there’s no need to spend big money. With a little do-it-yourself ingenuity, you can make some fantastic yard games using materials commonly found at the Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It’s easy and we’ll show you how! 

Here are a few yard games you can make, with instructions on what to buy and how to build them.

Giant Jenga

The mega-popular Jenga turns giant in this outdoor version of the towering and tumbling block game. To make your own set, you’ll need 54 of the same size wooden blocks. You can build these by cutting up 2x4s. 

Jan Hagerman of ReStore says the two secrets are to use a sander to round the edges to prevent splinters and to wax them so they slide easier. 

Instead of paying upwards of $100 for an outdoor Jenga set, you can build one with about $5 worth of 2x4s from the ReStore.

Yard Dice

A typical set of yard dice includes five or six extra large dice that can be used for a variety of dice games including Yahtzee. You can also include a hula hoop to play a game that involves seeing who can score the most points by tossing dice inside the hoop. 

To make the dice, cut cubes of 4x4 from material such as a fence post. Sand the edges to smooth them out. Use siding nails with plastic washers to represent the dots on each side. 

Expert tip: Create paper templates for each side of the dice to make sure you put the right amount of dots on each side!

Bag Toss

Bag toss, also known as cornhole, is fun for the whole family. The game consists of two boards, each with one hole, and four each of two different colored bean bags. Teams of two play against each other, trying to score points by landing bean bags in the hole or on the board. 

This can be a more challenging DIY project as it requires a bit more building skills. 

Materials needed include plywood panels for the top of the board as well as studs to form collapsible legs. Bean bags can be made by filling 6"x6" fabric squares with 14-16 ounces of rice or beans. 

Word Games

Numerous word games, including Scrabble, Boggle, and Bananagrams, can be played by making 100 large letter tiles. 

Find some thin plywood and cut into 100 equal-sized squares. Use paint or a permanent marker to draw on the letters. Use a Scrabble game as your guide on how many tiles to make of each letter.

Make creating the yard games part of the fun by including family members in the DIY projects. You can even add a patriotic flare by painting them red, white, and blue for your 4th of July celebration.