Cup Relay With a Twist!

Everyone who has been to a picnic or a field day knows the classic fire-brigade-cup-relay game.  Traditionally, participants take a cup of water from one bucket and either travel an obstacle course, pour water through a bucket brigade, or perform a feat of balancing to deposit the water in a separate bucket. We’ve got the same game but different – Cup Relay with a Twist!

Rather than performing the game on dry ground, move it to the pool.  Divide your group into two teams.  Station all the team members in separate inflatable tubes in the pool.  Make a lineup–assign each team member a number.  It is critical the relay proceed in order:  #1 can only transfer to #2 and so on.

The first member of each team takes a cup of water from a bucket on one end of the swimming pool.  Then, that person propels the tube to pass on water to the second member of the team.  Meanwhile, members of the opposite team attempt to prevent the water pass by blocking (make your own house rules for blocking–depending on the age and strength of your participants, you may not want anyone having physical contact during the blocking or you may want to incorporate toys like pool noodles or squirt guns).  The teams race to fill buckets on the end of the pool opposite the start bucket.  The first team to finish wins.