I loved playing dodgeball when I was young.
And, I was pretty good (even if I do say so myself)!
Dodgeball can be a tricky game to play if you don’t have a gym to play it in. If you play it outdoors, there aren’t any walls to contain the balls. You could spend the majority of your time chasing the ball and retrieving it from the flowerbeds and bushes. Not fun. (And, I can imagine that you might not be too happy having your grandkids tromping through your flowerbeds either!)
Guard the Queen is a variation of dodgeball that you can easily play in the backyard where time chasing the ball is minimal and you won’t have balls in your flowers (hopefully!).
This is a no-prep and no-cost activity that is great fun for your grandkids — especially tweens and teens. All you need is a ball (one that is soft and won’t hurt your grandkids) and an outdoor area.
Here’s how you play it.
Gather a group of your grandkids. The more you have the better. Select one person to be the queen and one person to be the bodyguard.
Form a large circle with the queen and bodyguard standing in the middle.
Players throw the ball and try to hit the queen. The queen has to stand in one spot. But, she can lean sideways or stoop to dodge the ball or take a small step sideways. She has to stay in a 3 foot area.
The bodyguard can go all over the place to block throws thrown at the queen. He can catch the ball, block it, hit it away — ANYTHING to protect the queen from getting hit. If the bodyguard catches the ball, he must toss it to a player in the circle.
Play continues until the queen gets hit by the ball. Then, the queen becomes the bodyguard, the bodyguard joins the circle, and the person who threw the ball that hit the queen now becomes the queen.
If you have enough grandchildren, you can have a queen and a king and two bodyguards. You could also play with more that one ball to liven things up.
Play continues until players’ interest wanes or they are too pooped to continue.
This is a great activity that gets your grandkids off the couch, getting some exercise, and having fun outdoors!
5 thoughts on “Guard the Queen Dodgeball”
This sounds like a fun variation on dodgeball, Nina. I like that it is a bit gentler as well, with someone to protect the person the ball is being thrown at. Thank you for sharing this fun activity for kids with us at the Hearth and Soul Hop.
I remember playing this in school. It is all about which type of ball used. The rubber red ones/blue too were the best.
All I need is the grandkids!
Thanks for sharing at SYC.
Sounds fun, I’ll have to try this one day when my kids are old. Right now they are four and seven and my four year would not like being accidentally hit with the ball.
Hi Miranda,
I have little grandkids that couldn’t handle this either. This activity is for older kids!
Thanks for dropping by.
Nina