It truly is all fun and games with our Funchute Parachute! Everyone recognizes these huge, colorful parachutes from their own childhood, but we’ve created a smaller version so you can create your own games and bring the fun home. These Funchutes are perfect for the upcoming summer vacation, backyard BBQ’s, birthday parties or even just a random fun day in the grass. If you’re ready for some serious team building and bonding while having tons of fun, keep reading below!

Funchute Parachute

Our Funchute Parachute is smaller in size than typical parachutes, but not in fun. This 6-foot diameter Funchute is perfect for smaller spaces (like your backyard!) and it works great with as little as 3 kids. Billow it in the air or bounce balls and stuffed animals on it to your heart’s content.

Isn’t it so true that every child instinctively knows what to do with one of these parachutes? Gigantic fun for kids of all ages (and even parents!), this parachute makes for great cooperative group play for class and sibling bonding and even helps to build muscle tone. Just throw it in the included carry bag to take it to the park or playground for a great way to make new friends! It also puts the “fun” in “functional” – our Funchute helps develop perceptual, cognitive, motor and academic skills. Made of high-quality polyester, this is a must have item for every child!

DIY Team Pins

There are over 100 different games that children can play using these Funchutes, many of which include team games and color-matching games. We’ve come up with simple DIY Team Pin slices you can make at home to keep the fun organized! Using the colors of the Funchute, these pins can be used for endless different team or match-up games, and the best part of all? They only take a few minutes to assemble so you can get right to the fun.

What you’ll need

• Felt pieces
  • Make sure to get colors that match your Funchute. We have a variety of different styles, which you can check out here, but for the purposes of this blog we used blue, green, red and yellow.
• Hot glue gun
  • Parents only!
• Safety pins with a flat back, or landing bar
• Scissors
• Sharpie
• A perfect circle to trace
  • This could be a bowl, plate, vase or whatever you can grab! Just make sure it will make for slices large enough to spot, so stay away from smaller circles such as mugs.
• A ruler
• Optional accessories: pom-poms, glitter or anything else that might match your felt pieces

How to make them

1. On a piece of paper, trace your perfect circle and find the center.
2. With your ruler, make 4 lines across the entire circle with them all touching in the center point to create equal slices matching the parachute. (For this particular parachute there should be 9 slices.)
3. Cut out all the slices from the paper and trace them on to your felt pieces with a Sharpie.
   1. For this parachute, there should be 2 blue, 2 red, 2 green and 3 yellow slices.
4. Cut out all of your felt pieces.
   1. When organized together, they should now create a mini parachute!
5. Using your hot glue gun, affix the flat back of the safety pin to the back of each felt piece and allow them to dry.
6. Decorate to your heart’s content! In this example we put pom poms across the top, but you can get more creative with glitter, writing names or anything else that would match the color of your slices.
7. Make sure your slices are dry and ready to go before pinning to your little ones!

Tip: If you do not have felt at home, you can recreate these by using just construction paper, or other similarly colored items, if you’re eager to get to the games without a trip to the craft store!

Games to play

As we mentioned, there are endless games you can play with our Funchute Parachute. Luckily for you, we’ve gathered a few game ideas to use with your new DIY Team Pins that are not only fun, but help the little ones with color association and teamwork as well!

Color Catch: Kids with “X” color(s) need to try to catch as many balls back on the parachute after they are thrown in the air. The team with the most colors on the parachute after a length of time (either within the duration of a song or using a stopwatch), wins!

Parachute Tag: Lift the parachute high into the air. Call out two children’s names, or two colors. They must trade empty spots by running under the chute, before it comes down on them. The child who gets there first, wins!

Color Shuffle: An adult grabs 3 color balls at random and throws them in the middle under the parachute. On the count of three, raise the chute, and the children with the corresponding color have to run under and find their ball before the chute comes down. Extra points if there are more than one ball they need to grab!

Parachute Volleyball: Split into two sides of the parachute. One side tries to knock the ball off of the other side (half of chute), right past the other “team.”

Balancing Act: Place 4 different colored balls on top of the parachute while holding it taut. One person starts a wave action to allow the balls to start moving. The aim is to prevent any of the colored balls to slip off the side. As everyone starts moving around to keep the balls from slipping of the side, it becomes increasingly difficult to control all four balls at the same time. The team with the color of the last ball to stay, wins!

Tell Us

What other team games do your kids love to play with their Funchute? Did you make the DIY Team Pins? Tell us about your Funchute experiences in the comments below!