20+ Amazing Archery Activities for Competitive Spirits Kids! 

Teaching our children 🧒 a sport from a very young age is shown to improve their hand-eye coordination, physical strength, and mental abilities. Archery 🏹is a wonderful sport for young children. 

Encouraging my kids to take part in Archery was one of the best decisions I made as a mother because I could see in real-time how it positively affected their self-confidence, taught them self-discipline, and improved their concentration. 

With Archery 🏹, children will encounter a lot of failures before they can become successful at it. This will teach them a valuable lesson in the importance of failure and being persistent to achieve our goals. 

Interesting Archery Activities for Kids 

I enrolled my kids in Archery 🏹 lessons not because I wanted them to become Olympic athletes but because I wanted to inculcate in them that physical acumen is just as important as mental acumen. 

I grew up in a house where academics was given precedence over everything, and that was really detrimental to my physical being. 

With the aforementioned activities, my aim was to help my children 🧒 practice their archery skills at home in creative ways. Hope your kids enjoy these activities as much as my children. 

Balloon Popping Game 

If your kids are learning Archery 🏹, then you can work on their targeting skills with a balloon-popping 🎈 competition. This is a game that is perfect for kids of all ages. 

What you need- 

Inflated balloons, tape, bow, and arrows. 

Steps- 

• Inflate a bunch of balloons of different sizes, preferably of different colors. 
• Assign a different point to each color. 
• Tape the balloons 🎈 around your backyard. Make sure that a misfire doesn’t land in your neighbor’s yard or is close to a window of your house. 
• Hand your children 🧒 their bows and arrows and ask them to collect the deflated balloons once they have hit them. 
• Tally the points once all of the balloons have been popped. 

Pro Tip- 

Since it is harder to hit a small target, assign a higher value of points to the small balloons 🎈. 

Archery Golf 

My kids are massive fans of golf ⛳ and on multiple occasions, I have built them a course in our backyard to keep them busy.

When they started learning Archery 🏹, I decided to combine golf with Archery to make this a fun game where they could target practice. 

What you need- 

Several bullseye, bow, and arrow. 

Steps- 

• Design a course with several bullseyes. 
• Using chairs, desks, ladders, and other household items, prop the bullseye in your backyard. 
• Explain the course to your children 🧒 and their friends. 
• Keep score as each kid tries to hit the target (one chance per kid). Repeat the course as many times as your kids like. 

Game of H.O.R.S.E. 

People who play basketball 🏀 must be familiar with the game of H.O.R.S.E. The rules are very simple: each player gets five chances to shoot an arrow in five different positions and at five different distances. 

If a player misses to hit the bullseye, they get a letter. The first contestant to spell the word H.O.R.S.E. loses the game. Kids who have just started practicing Archery 🏹 will love this game as it is super challenging and competitive. 

Read Books Related to Archery 

There are several books for young adults and teenagers that feature a protagonist who is an archer. There are also many non-fiction novels that go into the history of Archery 🏹, ways to improve skills, and cover the story of the best of the best in Archery. 

I will recommend the following books- Traditional Archery from Six Continents: 

• The Charles E. Grayson Collection
• Archer by Boy Scouts of America
• Benise Parker: A Teenage Archer’s Quest for Olympic Glory
• The Apple and the Arrow by Mary Buff, and, 
• Bowhunter’s Guide to Accurate Shooting by Lon E. Lauber. 

Pro Tip- 

If you have an overactive child who can’t pay attention to the book they are reading, then I highly recommend asking them to read the book aloud. This is a great way to improve your child’s diction and spelling as well. 

Archery Tag 

Combine the rules of dodgeball with the fun of Archery 🏹. Divide a group of kids into two teams and ask them to stand on opposite sides of your backyard. 

Each team member will have a bow and a set number of arrows (with sponges at the end). The teams will also have obstacles to hide behind and face masks for protection. 

Each team must hit the team members on the other team with their arrows. The team with the last player standing wins. 

My kids have played this game with their friends from archery class multiple times, and each time they play, all of the parents can notice the improvements in their coordination, balance, and shooting an arrow at a moving target. 

D.I.Y. Archery Cupcakes 

If your child is really into Archery and is having an archery-themed🏹 party, then they’ll really enjoy these archery-inspired cupcakes. 

What you need- 

Chocolate cupcakes 🧁, white frosting, white fondant, and red, yellow, blue, green, and black food coloring. 

Steps- 

• Mix green food coloring with white frosting in a mixing bowl. 
• With a spatula, spread the green frosting on the cupcakes 🧁 and put it in the fridge. 
• Meanwhile, divide the white fondant into four sections. Put a few drops of black, red, yellow, and blue food coloring on each fondant section and knead until the desired color is achieved. 
• Using a rolling pin, roll the fondant into a sheet that is half an inch thick. 
• Use the largest cookie cutter that you have and cut the black fondant. 
• Use the second largest cookie 🍪 to cut the blue fondant. 
• Use a bottle cap to cut the red fondant and a smaller bottle cap to cut the yellow fondant. 
• With the help of water, stick the blue fondant on top of the black fondant, the red on top of the blue, and the yellow on top of the red. 
• Now, put the bullseye on the cupcakes 🧁 and put it back in the fridge. Take it out of the fridge 10 minutes before serving. 

Pro Tip- 

If you wish to make an arrow, use a toothpick and stick a rectangular piece of fondant on the other end. Lightly insert the toothpick into the cupcake. 

Pinata Shoot 

If you are having a birthday party for a young archer, then instead of making them hit a pinata 🪅, make them shoot an arrow into it. Fill the pinata with candy and let all the kids take turns one by one to aim at the pinata. 

For my child’s birthday party, we had several smaller pinatas and a large one for the birthday boy. This way, all of the little archers got a chance to show their skills and shoot at a pinata. 

Pro tip- 

Do not hang the pinata 🪅 on a tree or in an open space. Make sure that it is secured next to a wall or a target. 

Watch Movies That Features Archery 

Before writing this article, I didn’t know that there were many movies where the lead characters or supporting characters were excellent archers. The movies I recommend are not just for kids but are also for teenagers and young adults. 

Therefore, you can decide as a parent or a guardian whether these movies are appropriate for your children 🧒 or not. I showed my kids the following movies- Brave, The Avengers, Robin Hood, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Hunger Games. 

Split the Arrow 

If you are involved in the world of Archery 🏹, by now, you have probably seen a slow-motion shot of a person splitting an arrow with another arrow. 

Splitting an arrow is a fun way to improve your aiming accuracy and can be achieved with other items as well. If you are planning to work on your child’s aiming accuracy at home, I recommend doing it this way. 

What you need- 

Empty paper towel roll🧻, bow, arrows, and a target. 

Steps- 

• Using tape, paste an empty paper towel roll on the target. 
• The archers must aim their arrows to go inside the paper towel roll. 

If more than one person is playing, you can make it into a game to see who can shoot the most amount of arrows through the paper towel rolls 🧻. 

Pro Tip- 

Change the location of the paper towel roll to increase the level of difficulty every 20 minutes. 

Lucky Stars 

This is another great aiming game that works on your child’s accuracy, aim, and focus. To play this game, you’ll need stickers of stars- large, medium, and small sizes. 

Paste the stars around the board, and assign the least amount of points to the largest stars💫 and the most to the smallest star⭐. You can also assign different points to the distance from which your kids will shoot the arrow. 

Fruit Shoot 

This game involves using different fruits as targets while practicing Archery 🏹 at home. Not only will this game improve your child’s aim and accuracy, but it will also be a lot of fun and satisfying for them to see an apple🍎 split in half or a fruit bursting open. This game is strictly outdoors only. 

Pro Tip- 

You can buy old fruits 🍉and vegetables🥕 from the farmer’s market if you don’t want to waste fresh fruit. Also, you can use the fruits 🍉 and vegetables 🥕 used in this game for compost or as animal feed for birds, squirrels, and insects. 

Archery Crossword 

Design an archery-related🏹 crossword for your child. My kids, especially my son, possess a vast knowledge of Archery. So, to test their knowledge, I designed a crossword for them. 

Some of the questions I included in the crossword were: 

• In which continent was the oldest arrowhead discovered? 
• What is the Latin origin of the word ‘archery?’ 
• Which five-time Olympian coached Jennifer Lawrence for The Hunger Games? 
• Which Paralympian holds the record for the longest archery shot? 
• And in what year were women allowed to compete in the Olympic archery 🏹category?  

Tic-Tac-Toe 

I don’t know what it is about tic-tac-toe that children 🧒 find so fascinating, but they surely love playing this game. 

The back of my daughter’s notebook is full of tic-tac-toe. To make at-home Archery 🏹 practice more fun for my kids, I decided to paste a large tic-tac-toe box on the target and handed my kids six arrows each (the arrows were of different colors to see who shot which arrow). 

They both got a chance, one after another, to shoot at the board. The rules of tic-tac-toe applied to the rest of the game. My aim with this game was to improve my children’s 🧒 focus and strategy while they were under pressure. 

Robin Hood Distance Game 

The Robin Hood distance game involves shooting an arrow at the target from different distances. Starting from the shortest distance and asking your child to go further away after each try. 

The child who shoots the arrow from the furthest distance will be crowned ‘Robin Hood’ for the rest of the day. 

Pro Tip- 

To make the game more challenging, you and your kid can play it at night using just flashlights. At night, the Robin Hood game is best played with one or two players due to fear of misfire. 

Watch a Documentary about Archery 

Whenever my kids develop a new interest, I scour the internet to find documentaries about that subject.

Documentaries are such a wonderful tool for visual learning, and they transport them into a new place with a click of a button. 

I recommend the following documentaries about Archery 🏹 to show your kids- Happiness: Sneaking Off to Do Archery (PBS), Tales of the Bow (YouTube), Archery: Its History and Forms (YouTube), and Ladies First (Netflix). 

Archery Tag 

Tag is a pretty common game amongst young children 🧒. It is great for the parents, too, as the kids are usually super tired after playing it.

In Archery 🏹 tag, instead of running after another person and tagging them, the archers will shoot their arrows (soft-tipped arrows) to tag other players. 

After the archer tags another kid, that kid will pick up the bow and arrow to tag another kid until only one kid remains. 

Aerial Archery 

As your child’s archery 🏹 skills start to improve, you can encourage them to play a game of aerial Archery to work on their aim while the target is not just moving in the direction of the wind but is also up in the air. 

I recommend practicing these skills if you have a large yard and you live far away from your neighbors. 

What you need- 

Ping-pong balls, pie plates, water jugs, string, and plastic bottles. 

Steps-

• Tie the ping-pong balls, pie plates, water jugs 🍶, and plastic bottles using the string around your backyard at varying heights. 
• Assign different items to different points based on the size, height at which they are hung, and the distance from which your child is shooting. 

Archery Card Pair Games 

With this Archery 🏹 card pair game, your kids can improve their archery and observation skills. On a large target, paste pairs of cards from a deck (for instance, two kings, two queens, two aces, etc). 

If more than one child is playing, the kids will take turns shooting the arrow at the cards ♠️, and the kid who is able to hit the most pairs will win the game. 

Archery Trivia Night 

If your kids are massive fans of Archery 🏹 and have a lot of knowledge about the sport’s history in the Olympics and other major games, then you should design an archery trivia night for your child. 

Some of the questions I asked my children 🧒- When was Archery introduced to the Olympic Games? Name the most decorated archer in Olympic History, and Archery is the National Sport of which country? 

Archery Bowling 

Combine the rules of bowling 🎳 with Archery. 

What you need- 

Solo cups, a target, arrows, and a bow. 

Steps- 

• Stack six solo cups on a table in front of a target. Two types of games can be played with this setup. 
• In the first game, just like in bowling 🎳, a person will get two chances to knock down as many solo cups as they possibly can. 
• A point is added to their score if any cup is still standing. 
• The person with the least amount of points will be crowned the winner. 
• To play the second game, the archer has unlimited opportunities to shoot the solo cups down, but the winner is the archer who shoots the fewest arrows. 

Conclusion 

If you and your child are currently looking for an extracurricular activity, I highly recommend giving Archery 🏹 a try. 

I myself have taken several lessons and am very happy with a wide range of people socializing with each other. Hopefully, with these archery-inspired activities, you can have some fun with your kids at home. 

Let me know in the comments what was your child’s favorite activity and which activity they were most excited to try.