Relay Race Ideas & Games for a Family Reunion

Looking for a fun activity for your upcoming family reunion that everyone will love?! Here are some great family reunion relay games that would be perfect for an Amazing Race type game!

Family Reunion Relay Games

No family reunion is complete without a little competition, right?

We hosted a family reunion a few years ago and decided to have a series of relay race games.

It ended up being of a mix between an Amazing Race type game and the show, Relative Race, and it took place entirely outdoors. However, if you need to, you could easily do most of those activities in an indoor gym.

The event was a lot of fun, and it was perfect for adults and children alike. Everyone was able to participate in one way or another!

We mixed up all the teams randomly so people didn’t just choose the family members they felt most comfortable with.

Here are the games we played along with some tips to ensure you get the best results you are looking for!

A Few General Guidelines

Here are a few things you will need for all of these activities:

• Printed out instructions
• Something to indicate what number activity it was (we used felt pennants)
• A scorecard
• Water bottles or a water jug with cups
• You can likely get a lot of these items at the Dollar Tree!

When creating teams, I would suggest making sure they are even – so if you have lots of little kids, make sure you split them up.

We made teams based on families, which worked out pretty well. We had one team that was just the teenagers, but in hindsight, I don’t think that was the best idea!

Make sure that you have plenty of space to setup the games. You could definitely set these up all over town if you want more of an “Amazing Race” feel – you’ll need to leave clues of where to go next if you go this route.

We found that doing it at the park was perfect for our size group and the demographics. 

It’s important to have a score sheet for each team to keep track of their score – make sure no one cheats! 

Family Reunion Activities

1. Cheese Ball Throw

This game is a lot of fun and pretty silly. Basically, you have to get the most cheese puffs to stick to your partner’s head in an allotted amount of time!

Instructions:

1. Choose a timekeeper with a timer on their phone or watch.
2. Split your team in half.
3. Half will put a shower cap on their heads and match up with a partner. (If your team is odd-numbered you can have three on one team)
4. Cover the shower caps with shaving cream.  
5. Set the timer for 30 seconds. The other partners will stand 5-10 feet away and throw cheese puffs at the shower caps.
6. You will receive five points for each cheese puff that successfully sticks in 30 seconds.
7. Record the number of cheese puffs that stick.  
8. Dispose of used shower caps in a garbage bag.

Materials:  

• Shaving Cream
• Disposable Shower Caps
• Garbage Bag
• Cheese Puffs

2. Cracker Eating Competition

This game is very simple and everyone can participate! Participants have 60 seconds to eat as many crackers as they can (no water allowed!)

Instructions

1. Select five team members to participate in the challenge.
2. Have someone set a timer on their watch for 60 seconds.
3. Have each participating team member eat as many crackers in 60 seconds as they can without drinking water or crumbling the crackers.
4. You will receive five points for every cracker eaten.
5. Record the number of crackers that are eaten.  
6. Afterward the cracker eaters and anyone else who wants one gets a water bottle!

Materials:

• Saltine Crackers
• Small Water Bottles

3. What Did You Say?

Instructions

1. Each teammate who can read will draw a card from the pile and act it out.  
2. Choose a card from one of the containers: easy words, medium words, and hard words.
3. Act it out until someone guesses it or gives up and passes to the next teammate, who chooses a new word.
4. Put used cards into the second container.
5. Have someone set a timer on their watch or phone for five minutes.
6. Have the scorekeeper record how many words are guessed in five minutes in each category.  
7. Dump all cards back into the original container when the five minutes are up.
8. You will receive five points for each word guessed correctly.

Materials:

• Container of words
• Container for used words

4. Soccer Goals

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Select someone with a timer on their watch or phone to be the time keeper.
• Locate the three soccer goals on the field.
•  Each team member takes turns kicking all three balls, aiming for a different goal each time.  
• You receive ten points for each soccer ball kicked into a goal from the starting line – it must go in the goal, not past it!
• You can have as many of your teammates participate in that time period to rack up the most points possible but no one can have two turns until everyone old enough to kick has had a turn.
• Set the timer for five minutes to complete the challenge.
• Be sure and keep track of how many goals are made, and record the total on your scorecard.

Materials:

1. Soccer Goals,
2. 3 soccer balls

5. Football Hula Hoops

• Locate the three hula hoops on the field.  
• Each teammate who wants to will have a chance to throw, kick, and punk a football.
• Keep track of how many lands inside a hula hoop and record them.
• No timer needed, everyone just takes a turn.
• You will receive ten points for each football that lands inside.

Materials:

• Three footballs,
• Three three hula hoops (The Dollar Tree would be a great place to buy both of these items).

6. Hat Catching

Instructions:

1. Choose a timekeeper with a timer on their watch or phone.  
2. Set the timer for three minutes when you are ready to start.
3. Choose a tall person on your team to hold up the broom handle.
4. Everyone else on the team takes turns throwing hats at the broom handle from ten feet away.
5. The person holding the broom handle can’t move but can move the broom handle to try and catch the hats.  
6. Record how many hats ring the broom handle.
7. You will receive five points for each hat.

Materials:

• Broom handle
• Lots of hats

7. Family Matching Game

Instructions:

1. There are two posters.
2. One has different facts about a certain family member on it, and a second poster has removable pictures of family members.
3. Your team has five minutes to match the pictures with the facts.
4. When you think you have them all right, tell the timekeeper.
5. She will tell you how many you have right, and how much time you have left.
6. You may make changes as many times as you want until the five minutes is up.
7. Record how many you guessed correctly. Ten points for each correct match.

Materials:

• Two posters with photos and clues

8. Social Media Blitz

• Choose a team member to set their timer for five minutes as soon as you have read and understood these directions.
• Each team member chooses a different prop to hold up.
• Points for posting group shots on as many Instagram or Facebook pages as you can in five minutes.
• Anyone who doesn’t want their pictures or their kids posted on social media may opt out, and text a separate picture a designated person. Record how many posts and texts you made.
• Five points for each post and text. Twenty points for a group shot texted to a designated person.

Materials:

• Prop box
• Selfie stick.

Notes

This game really brought some spunk to the teenagers. With that said, we would adjust it if we were to do it again, because there shouldn’t be one game to determine the winner of everything. The team that had eight phones as opposed to the group who had two had a somewhat unfair advantage 🙂

One approach would be saying each person could post to Facebook and Instagram once per device, and then there would be extra points for any like or comment they receive by the end of the game.

9.  Eggs-actly a Dozen

• Choose a timekeeper who has a timer on their watch or phone.
• There are a dozen hard-boiled eggs.
• Draw a team member’s name out of the bowl.
• Blindfold him and give him a spoon with a hard-boiled egg on it.
• The team member then walks towards the bucket out on the field, with other team members shouting instructions.
• The goal is to drop the egg safely into the bucket and then run back to the start, give the blindfold to someone else and it’s now their turn.
• If they drop the egg they have to start over.   Five points for each egg dropped into the bucket in five minutes (12 max)
• Return the eggs to the carton when time is up and points have been recorded.

Materials:

• One dozen hard-boiled eggs in an egg carton
• Spoons
• Bucket
• Blindfold
• If you want to avoid real eggs, you can buy some fake ones on Amazon!

And there you have it. We had such a fun time with this activity, and I know your family will, too. You can always add other relay races if you don’t love all of the ones above.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Family Reunion Snack Ideas
• Minute to Win It Games
• Best Water Activities and Games for Kids of all Ages