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Jumping, crawling, tossing, and more! This is what an all out fun and games obstacle course should include. For my 11 year old daughter’s birthday party this year (she has a June birthday) we put together a Dollar Store Obstacle Course with a host of fun obstacle course ideas.

My daughter loves horses and while we have already had 2 horse themed birthday parties she was adamant about sticking to her first love. She came up with the idea to do jumping as she has created tons of “horse jumps” for humans here at our house. What that idea turned into was a super fun obstacle course for her birthday party.

Dollar Store Obstacle Course Ideas

Before we went shopping we made a list of obstacle course ideas that we felt we could pull off.  Using that list we searched the house for things we had at home to use. Then we made a list of items we would need to purchase. Most of the items used can be found at the Dollar Store.

Hula Hoops

We simply placed hula hoops on the ground side by side and had the kids stepping one foot in each one of them. Our son decided that wasn’t challenging enough so he hopped in each one with two feet.

Human Horse Jumps

This activity is what started the whole obstacle course idea. We always have make shift jumps set up around our house!

We had 3 jumps of varying sizes throughout the obstacle course. {Small, Medium & Large} These can be adjusted based on the heights and abilities of the jumpers.

What you need: We used a combination of broom sticks, wood, and storage containers. Any mop, shovel or broom will do. Also any sized storage containers such as shoe boxed sized plastic bins, file sized boxes, etc.

Balance Beam

We originally had a jump rope stretched out on the ground as our “balance beam”. I was able to find a scrap piece of wood at the last minute (2×4) to use instead.

Water Balloon Toss

Using laundry and storage baskets, as well as a set of water balloons we created a balloon toss. These balloons also became super fun to use as just water balloons when we were all done with the obstacle course. Be sure to leave extra time ahead of time to fill these as water balloons are time consuming to fill and tie.

Jump Rope

These can be used in a variety of ways. We chose to use one as a standard jump rope. Even doing this you can have them jump forward or backwards or tie two together and have people swinging it for the jumper.

Racket & Ball

This one I randomly added because we have tennis rackets hanging in the garage. This could also be done with the wooden paddles and balls as well as with badminton rackets and birdies.

I knew this one would be a little more challenging so we only had them do it 5 times and it didn’t have to be consecutively.

Ring Toss

What you need: We used nothing but pool noodles, a little duct tape, and a garden stake to create this fun station.

Army Crawl

To create this one we took tent stakes and place them in the ground, pairing them up two by two. We then pushed one end of the pool noodle over each stake to create the arch.

As an added bonus it was hot the day we did this so we grabbed our Wiggling Water Sprinkler and added it in for a fun extra!

What you need: pool noodles, tent stakes, sprinkler is optional

I also found a variation of this that used stakes and winding a rope between them to create the apparatus to crawl under.

You can find some more great pool noodle obstacle course ideas here.

Tire Roll

We had an old motorcycle tire in the garage so like the Racket & Ball I added this one in at the last minute. It proved to be a fun addition and a great one to get them from one place to another!

Scooter Race

Using basic orange cones we created a line of them to be scootered through in a zigzag pattern. This could just as easily have been run through, gone backwards through, hopped on one leg through, etc.

While we used all these obstacle course ideas for a birthday party, they could also be used to fulfill homeschool PE time as well!

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