Marco Polo - The Classic Pool Game Marco Polo is a game played with 2 or more players.
One player is Polo and the other players are Marco.
The Polo player must keep their eyes closed at all times.
The game begins when Polo counts to ten.
Meanwhile the Marco players scatter around the pool.
Polo shouts "Marco" and all of the Marco players must respond "Polo".
The Polo player finds the Marco players by their voices.
The Polo player continues to shout "Marco" while the Marco players continue to respond until the Polo player catches a Marco and they become Polo.
Variations to this game include "Fish out of Water.
" During the game if a Marco gets out of the pool and the Polo player thinks someone is on land they can yell "Fish Out of Water.
" If there is someone out of water they become Polo.
Categories - Categories is played with 3 or more players.
The more people playing the more fun the game is.
A player is selected to stand facing the wall with eyes closed on one side of the pool.
All other players sit in the water at the other side of the pool with at least one hand touching the wall.
The player selected as "It" picks a category and counts to 20.
The players on the other side of the wall pick something in the category.
(For example color) After the player that is "It" finishes counting they start yelling out things from their category.
(ex.
red, blue green, etc) When someone hears their category called they must swim as quietly as possible to the other side of the pool, past the "It" player and touch the wall.
If the "It" player hears anyone swimming they can try and tag them.
The game starts over with a new category if another player is tagged or if all players get past the "It" player.
Jailbreak - Jailbreak is played with 3 or more players.
One person is chosen to be the warden and the other players are prisoners.
The object of the game is to spell JAILBREAK.
The warden stands in the shallower end of the pool with eyes closed and faces the wall.
All the other players sit in the water at the other end of the pool, hands on wall.
The wall is considered base.
A prisoner can be tagged if they are not touching the wall.
The warden moves form wall to wall on the shallower end of the pool guarding the base wall on the other side.
The prisoners must swim quietly past the warden to the base wall on the other side.
Once they reach the other side they get a letter.
If a prisoner is tagged by the warden they lose all of their letters and become warden.
If all prisoners reach the wall they all go back to the other side of the pool to try and get their next letter.
The first prisoner to get past the warden 9 times in a row and spell JAILBREAK is the winner.
Variations to the game include the warden swimming in the middle of the pool instead of walking across the shallow end and the prisoners swimming back and forth at their own pace spelling JAILBREAK as fast as possible.
Relays - Relay races require two teams.
One player from each team jumps into the pool and swims to the other side and back to the start.
They tag their teammate who swims to the other side and back.
This goes on with every player on the team.
The first team that finishes wins.
There are many variations to the relay racing.
In one each player must sit on and pop a water balloon before the other player can continue.
In another, a each player swims with a sponge and the first team to overflow same size buckets wins.
Diving Contest - For this contest 2 or more players are required.
If the pool is deep enough, at least 6 feet for younger children, you can hold a diving contest.
The judge, usually a supervising parent, watches the kids take turns diving.
They are judged from 1 to 10, based on splash and form, 10 being the best.
Variations include a belly flop contest and cannonball contest.