Having been back East for our book tour I was reminded of just how hot summer can be!  After 20 years enveloped in the SF fog, one forgets that summertime usually means finding as many ways as possible to keep your children from overheating.

Which brings me to one of my all time favorite party props - the water balloon!  I am all about water balloon games. There’s something so inviting about that thin colorful membrane of ;atex separating you from a full cup of water.  It’s almost magical - the way you can hold the difference between wet and dry in the palm of your hand!

Some folks, admittedly, don’t like to get wet in this surprising manner which is why Allison McDonald’s water balloon game is a perfect mix of water play, art, and sport.  If you’re not an Angry Birds fan, you can make this just about any type of erasure game.  Try fireman putting out the flames, or superhero vanquishing a foe.  If you can draw it, the water balloons can annihilate it.

Get the kids involved in every aspect of the game, from filling the water balloons, to creating the playing field, to the final clean up of all the pieces.  Make a game of the final clean up as well by setting a time limit count down for detritus pick up. Or create a sorting contest to see how many colored pieces each player can gather.  From beginning to end, this is one of those activities that won’t leave you all wet...unless of course you want it to.