Free Interactive Games for Adult and Children

I was reading through a post over at Modern Mechanix: Fun with Balloons and it reminded me of some of the ways my mom would keep us kids from being bored during the summer. Playing basketball with a wastebasket and volleyball with a line stretched across the livingroom, this seemed to keep us out of mom's hair for a while, or until someone cheated.

The other idea from Modern Mechanix - Spike the potato however, looks to be more of an adult game. But it got me thinking about some other unique ways to entertain children and adults that are free.

Beanbag game - use different colored socks tied up with rice for teams and cut out holes in different cardboard boxes and stack them up, marking them for points

Playing Charades - With at least 4 people you can decide on a topic and act out the words to everyone's enjoyment.

Bottle Bowling - Now with plastic containers it isn't as breakable. Set up soda bottle, in the hallway or garage, in bowling pin order (4-3-2-1) and a small ball, have a box or blanket hanging down in the back to catch the ball.

3 legged races - Working in unison to run from one end of the driveway, or a soft landing area, to the other plus turning around and going back.

Bat Spin race - Splitting in two teams, run to each teams own bat, put your head on the top and spin around it a number of times and run back to the next team member.

Any kind of boardgames can be pulled out to play and card games are always easy to start. At my Grandparents gatherings there would always be an someone willing to play speed solitaire - just remember to cut your nails.

One game that was played at college gatherings didn't have a name - but I called it the 9 magazine game - online they have the rules and call it "simulated psychic"- But you need two people who are in on game. A "sender" and a "receiver" - The "sender" and "receiver" imagine that the cover of each magazine is divided into 9 regions, each region corresponding to one of the 9 magazines. The "sender" taps on the region corresponding to the designated magazine.
Picture Memory - Show a picture for 30 seconds and have everyone study it. Then turn it over and everyone writes down as much of the picture as they remember - the one with the most wins.

Picture Memory 2 - Paste matching pictures on juice can lids and turn them over, shuffle and find the matching pair in the fastest time.

Building Playing Card Towers - It is amazing what people can do and they have competitions to determine a champion card stacker [video]

What other games have you played, as adult or child, that you enjoyed?