Everything you need to fill a sunny afternoon with laughter, movement and genuine connection, no batteries required.
The honest answer to "what should we do at a children's garden party?" is simpler than the internet makes it look: give small children space, a handful of props and a grown-up willing to play alongside them. Research drawn together by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff consistently shows that playful, lightly structured activity is the primary engine of early cognitive and social development. A game of skittles on the lawn is not merely a way to fill twenty minutes before cake; it is, in the most literal developmental sense, learning in its finest form.
Outdoor play compounds those benefits further. Children who move, run and throw in natural light show measurably better attention, motor coordination and emotional regulation than those whose afternoon is organised around screens. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been unequivocal on this point for well over a decade, noting that active play, particularly with peers, builds the executive-function skills that underpin everything from sharing to problem-solving. A screen-free garden party is not a nostalgic conceit. It is, by the weight of evidence, exactly the right choice.
What the research says
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff's work across multiple studies finds that playful learning combining physical activity, social interaction and open-ended challenge produces stronger developmental outcomes than passive entertainment. A garden party that involves throwing, running and turn-taking ticks every one of those boxes.
Children under five live, neurologically speaking, very much in the present moment. Alison Gopnik's research into early childhood cognition describes the under-five mind as a "lantern" rather than a spotlight: wide, exploratory, easily drawn to whatever is most vivid right now. This is not a flaw to be corrected; it is a design feature. The practical consequence for party planning is that the best games are those with an immediate, visible payoff: the crash of a skittle, the satisfying arc of a beanbag, the shout of "my turn" from a two-year-old who has suddenly decided to join in.
Mixed-age groups, almost inevitable when siblings attend, work best when the game has adjustable difficulty built in naturally. Stand closer, use a softer ball, lower the target. Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development reminds us that children learn most readily when a task is just slightly beyond their current ability but achievable with a little support. A five-year-old bowling from six feet away and a two-year-old bowling from two feet away are both, crucially, bowling, and both feel the same glow of success.
There is a reason skittles have appeared at gatherings for centuries. The game requires no reading, no complex rules and no prior experience; a child who has never played before understands instinctively what to do the moment a skittle falls. The proprioceptive feedback, feeling the weight of a ball, judging the distance, releasing at the right moment, is rich developmental input. Pellegrini's extensive work on physically active play notes that gross-motor games also carry significant social value: children cheer for one another, negotiate turns and regulate their own excitement in real time.
Ring toss adds a layer of fine-motor challenge and spatial reasoning that keeps slightly older children genuinely engaged. Beanbag throw, whether aimed at a target or simply towards a hoop on the grass, is forgiving enough for toddlers and satisfying enough for pre-schoolers who want to feel competent. Keep three or four of these games available simultaneously rather than running them sequentially; small children self-select the challenge that suits them, and the garden hums with purposeful activity rather than queuing and waiting.
Browse Jaques of London wooden skittles sets, made for outdoor play and generations of useChasing games, tag, a simple egg-and-spoon race along the lawn, are among the oldest forms of children's play documented across cultures. Jaak Panksepp's neuroscientific work identified "PLAY" as one of the primary emotional systems of the mammalian brain, with chasing activating neural circuits associated with joy and social bonding. Sergio Pellis extended this research, showing that active social play builds the prefrontal cortex, the seat of impulse control and empathy, more effectively than almost any other early experience.
For under-fives, the rules of chasing games need not be elaborate. "Run to the tree and back" is a complete instruction. Bunny hops, bear walks and crab scuttles across the lawn introduce animal-themed movement that delights toddlers and gives slightly older children a physical challenge. These games require nothing more than a patch of grass and a willing adult to model the first go; after that, children sustain them independently, often for far longer than parents expect.
A note on boisterous play
Pellis and Panksepp both emphasise that physical, chasing play is not something to manage away but something to facilitate safely. Children who regularly engage in active chasing show better emotional regulation and social competence. Setting broad spatial boundaries and one or two simple safety rules is all the scaffolding most groups need.
Adele Diamond's research on executive function in early childhood is clear: young children are still developing the cognitive machinery needed to cope gracefully with losing. This is not weakness; it is neurology. The most effective party hosts treat rules as starting suggestions rather than binding contracts. Move the throwing line forward for younger children. Give everyone three goes instead of one. Declare a "tallest skittle" prize and a "most enthusiastic throw" prize alongside the obvious ones.
Kenneth Ginsburg, writing for the American Academy of Pediatrics on the importance of play, notes that children need the experience of overcoming challenge, not the experience of humiliation. A gentle, imaginative adjustment of the rules, made openly and cheerfully, teaches children that games exist for enjoyment rather than judgment. You will almost certainly find that older children, far from objecting, become enthusiastic rule-adapters themselves, helping younger ones and discovering, in the process, what it feels like to be generous.
The single most useful principle is redundancy: more games than you think you need, set up before the first guest arrives. Lay out skittles at one end of the garden, a ring-toss post near the middle and a simple running track marked with two cones at the far end. Children circulate naturally between stations, and no single game needs to sustain the whole group's attention simultaneously.
Jaques of London has been making traditional games since 1795, longer than any other games company in the world. The wooden game sets in the Jaques range are designed with the same underlying philosophy that has endured for more than two centuries: simple rules, beautiful materials, play that belongs to the child rather than the instruction manual. A well-made wooden skittles set or a ring-toss game comes out for a birthday party in May and reappears on a Tuesday afternoon in October; it does not lose charge, require an update or demand a screen. It simply plays.
Explore the full Jaques outdoor games collection, traditional games built to last outdoors and inGames with a visible, physical outcome work best across this age range, because the goal is immediately obvious without explanation. Skittles, ring toss and beanbag throw all allow each child to play from whatever distance feels right, so a two-year-old and a five-year-old are genuinely playing the same game, just from different spots on the lawn. Chasing and movement games also work well, because younger children can participate at their own pace and older ones naturally moderate their speed without being asked. Avoid any game that requires reading, sustained turn-taking or abstract scoring; keep the feedback immediate and physical, and mixed ages look after themselves.
Two minutes of focused engagement is, developmentally speaking, perfectly normal for a two-year-old, and it is worth reframing this as a feature rather than a problem. Gopnik's research reminds us that toddlers are designed to sample widely and move on; they are gathering information about the world rather than specialising in any single activity. The most effective approach is variety: three or four different games available simultaneously, so a child can drift from skittles to chasing to simply carrying the beanbags around and back again. Each return to a game often lasts slightly longer than the last. Open-ended props, a ball, a hoop, a set of skittles, tend to hold attention better than games with a fixed script, because the child can reinvent what they are doing every few minutes.
The most important thing is to treat the upset as entirely reasonable rather than something to be argued away. Diamond's work on executive function confirms that the emotional circuitry for graceful losing is still being wired in children under five; expecting stoicism is expecting neurology that simply is not there yet. Build in multiple small moments of success rather than one winner at the end, adjust the rules cheerfully and visibly so that every child has a genuine chance, and keep an eye out for children hovering at the edges. An invitation to "help me set the skittles back up" often brings a reluctant or upset child back into the game through a side door, with their dignity intact and a job they feel proud of.
Look for solid wood construction with a smooth, sealed finish that tolerates grass and mild damp without warping. Sets that come with a carry bag or simple storage box are worth the small extra cost, because a game that packs away in thirty seconds gets used far more often than one that requires sorting fifty pieces back into a tray. Jaques of London's traditional game sets, including skittles and outdoor throwing games, are built with exactly this kind of repeated outdoor use in mind, reflecting more than two centuries of experience in making games that last beyond a single party afternoon. A set bought for a fifth birthday has every reason to still be on the lawn when that child's own children are five.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.