Toss Games for Kids

Bean Bags

• Most toy stores offer vast selections of bean bag games that include bean bags and feature upright standing game boards. Game boards typically have several holes cut out for tossing bean bags through that allow varied amounts of points for accurate throws. Store-bought bean bag games come in several themes such as farm or jungle animals, football, tic-tac-toe and race cars. You can also find mats that lay on the floor and have printed-on targets for bean bag tossing.

Ball Games

• A couple of simple toss games played with balls are Chinese ball and barefoot boccie. In Chinese ball groups of 10 or more kids are assembled in a circle and swiftly toss a moderately sized ball -- like a volley or basketball -- back and forth. When one player catches the ball, the other children must raise their arm that is closest to the player holding the ball until it is tossed again. If a child raises the wrong arm or drops the ball, he is eliminated until only five players remain. For barefoot boccie ball, draw a tossing line on the floor to stand at and place a hat upside a few feet away. Have each player remove one sock, ball it up and take turns tossing the socks into the hat.

Ring Toss

• You can use the plastic rings from toddlers' games to create your own ring toss games for bigger kids. For a floating ring toss game, simply place the base of the game into a small splash pool of water to create a moving target. To play rocket toss, draw a picture of a rocket ship on a piece of construction paper, cut it out and tape it to an empty plastic soda bottle. Use a small bottle for plastic toddler toy rings or a 2-liter bottle and create larger rings by knotting strips of rope closed at the ends. Toss the plastic or rope rings around your homemade rocket ship. You can also use the neck of lawn flamingo decoration as a target.

Hot Potato

• Kids of all ages can play hot potato using a bean bag, small ball, large dry sponge or anything that can be safely tossed around. Have the kids stand in a circle and quickly and continuously toss the object around the circle from player to player. After about 30 seconds, have a group leader yell out "Hot potato!" At that time all players must halt activity and the child holding the "hot potato" is eliminated from the game. Continue the game until one player is left and declared the winner.

Online Tossing Games

• If your child enjoys playing video games, many tossing games are available to play for free online. The PBS Kids website offers a virtual coin toss game where kids can use the mouse to click on an on-screen image of a coin. Choose how many times the coin will be flipped -- between 2 and 10,000 -- to measure the percentages of heads vs tales. The Games 14 website offers 150 free online tossing games that include sports games like football, basketball and dodge ball as well as humorous parody tossing games such as "spear Brittany," "Pizza Delivery" and "Throw Rocks at Boys."