If you’re looking for awesome things to do at a graduation party, you’ll love these 20 games and activities!
You only graduate from high school once, so you deserve a celebration that you’ll remember long after the ink on your diploma dries!
From hilarious indoor games to epic outdoor activities, with these ideas, your party will rock come rain or shine.
Let’s check them out!
Need help planning your menu? Check out ►►► 20 Best Appetizer and Party Snack Recipes for Your Graduation Party
Awesome Things to Do at a Graduation Party
Let’s kick this party off with some fun indoor graduation party games that you can do as your guests arrive.
Then, we’ll head outdoors into the sunshine for a few exciting outdoor activities!
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Indoor Graduation Party Games & Activities
Most of these indoor games are “Minute to Win It” style, so they make perfect “filler” games while waiting for guests to arrive or in-between other activities.
FYI, they also work outdoors, so if your entire party takes place under the sun, you can still use them to fill in gaps between your outdoor games.
1. High School Dance Party Karaoke
Every epic party needs a good round or two of karaoke!
Make yours a “high school dance” theme by loading up a playlist with the most popular songs from each year of your high school career.
What you Need:
Thanks to smartphone apps and YouTube, you no longer have to rent a ginormous and expensive karaoke machine for this fun party idea!
- Download one of these Karaoke apps to your smartphone.
- Grab a Karaoke microphone from Amazon. Don’t worry, they’re not expensive!
How to Play:
Set up a Karaoke station in your living room, along with a signup sheet where your guests put down their name and song that they want to sing.
Let them belt out their favorite tunes to a captive audience! Keep the list going and do this throughout the party between other games.
2. Oh the Places You Will Go Appetizer Buffet
Turn your menu into a party game by creating an “Oh, the Place You Will Go” buffet!
What You Need:
Snacks, appetizers, and finger foods from different countries around the world.
Just make a list of about 10 countries, then search “appetizer from ___” Fill in the blank with each country.
For example:
How to Play:
As guests arrive, give them a list of or a map with the countries that inspired your buffet.
Then, just challenge guests to match each food to the right country!
This one is great because you can play throughout the entire party, plus it takes care of most of your menu planning!
Check out this video for some more food ideas:
3. Balloons in the Air
Between college, work, and socializing, you’ll have a lot of balloons in the air after graduation. Let’s see how well you can keep them all up!
What You Need:
A bunch of balloons
filled with regular air (you know, like from your lungs)
How to Play:
Give each person three balloons and challenge them to keep them all in the air for a minute.
4. Transfer Student
This Minute to Win It game has been called a lot of things, like Baby Rattle to Bottle to Bottle, but the concept is usually the same.
What You Need:
Two soda bottles for each player. One empty and one filled with things like gumballs, jelly beans, or cereal.
How to Play:
Tape the bottles together and challenge player to be the fastest to transfer the candy from one bottle to the other. It’s harder than it sounds!
5. Moving up in the world
This is inspired by the game in the video below, but with a couple of twists.
What You Need:
About 50 cups, all one color. Rather that getting enough cups for multiple players at once, just use the same 50 and have players take turns.
How to Play:
- Put a sticker on the bottom of one of the cups (or you can use a Sharpie to draw a smiley face) and place it randomly in the stack.
- Stack them all up and start the timer for 15 seconds. Yep, just 15.
- Players have to move cups from the bottom of the stack to the top one-by-one until they find the sticker.
- The player who does it the fastest wins.
6. Balancing Act
Life is definitely a balancing act once you start college! See how well you’ll manage it with this cheap party game.
What You Need:
- Three balls, all the same size. You can use anything from golf balls to beach balls.
- Scotch tape
How to Play:
Player have to balance all three balls on top of each other (and keep them balanced for at least 3 seconds, which is harder than it sounds), all in one minute.
Since life is all about making creative use of the few tools we have, each player gets roll of scotch tape
to help them achieve their goal.
Don’t worry, the tape won’t make it much easier. Have you ever tried to hold anything together with scotch tape?
Check out this video for tips on how to play this game:
7. Time of Your Life Show
This one requires a lot of advance planning, but it’s worth it! It’s also not so much a game as an activity.
What You Need:
Pictures from all four years of high school. Ask friends to send you some of theirs to include, too.
Some sort of slide show app (on Windows, you can use the Photo app to make one).
Here’s a good example to inspire you:
How to Play:
Set up a slide show highlights reel for friends to watch. Keep it going on a loop so people can check it out as they arrive.
8. Nose Dive
I hate to tell you this, but at some point in your life you’ll feel like your entire existence has taken a big nose dive.
Get ready to pull yourself out of it with this fun game!
What You Need:
- Vaseline
- Cotton balls in a bowl
- Empty bag in a waste can
in a bowlHow to Play:
Each player dabs the Vaseline on their nose, then sticks it into the bowl of cotton balls and transfers it to the waste can.
The original game uses another empty bowl, but I can almost guarantee you that someone will try to blow it off their nose by, well, blowing their nose.
At least with the trash bag, you don’t have snot all over the place! Check out the video for tips on how to play.
9. Chalkboard Memories
Although most schools use digital whiteboards or something similar, most of you are old enough to remember the age of chalkboards, even if it was just in kindergarten!
Recapture those memories and make some new ones with this activity!
What You Need:
- Chalkboard wall decal or contact paper (make sure it’s a large one)
- Different colored chalk
or contact paper (make sure it’s a large one)How to Play:
Ask guests to write (or draw) their favorite memory of high school.
Take a photo of the finished board to print out for all of your friends, then roll it up and keep it for yourself as a memento!
10. Superlative Photo Wall
This idea from The Spruce is one of my favorite things to do at a graduation party!
What You Need:
- Enlarged yearbook photos of your guests
- Markers
- Blank labels.
.How to Play:
- Hang the pictures on a wall yearbook-style and set out the markers and labels nearby.
- Ask everyone to choose one person and give them a superlative. You can either assign people to each guest or let them choose as they arrive.
Outdoor Graduation Party Activities & Ideas
It’s time to head into the sunshine with these ten graduation party ideas! While you can play the above indoor games outside, you definitely need to be outside for these ideas!
11. Wet Sponge Relay Race
How well can you play with others? Find out with this fun relay race that will help cool you down!
What You Need:
- Buckets filled with water
- Empty Cups
- Sponges
How to Play:
- Put the cups at one end of the yard and the buckets at another. Have guests line up between them.
- Blow a whistle and challenge teams o fill the cups with water.
- The first person on the team saturates the sponge, then passes it down the line to the person next to the cup.
It’s harder than it sounds because, even if each person carefully avoids squeezing the sponge, it still leaks a lot of its water before reaching the end.
12. Water Balloon Table Tennis
How long can you paddle a water balloon back and forth before it bursts? Find out with this idea!
What You Need:
- Water balloons filled almost to bursting point.
- Table tennis (or ping pong) paddles
- A table and a net (you can buy a ping pong set up, or just make a “net” out of pretty much anything, as long as you have some way to mark the middle of the table)
filled almost to bursting point.
How to Play:
You can play this two ways:
- Break players into teams of two and see which team can keep their balloon intact the longest.
- Pit player to player against each other, the one who makes the balloon pop loses.
13. Balloon Dart Career Game
Similar to the traditional balloon dart carnival game, but with a twist!
What You Need:
- Balloons
- Darts
- A board to hang the balloons on (you can use thick cardboard or a peg board)
- Little round tags (like the kind they use at the carnival to write the prize sizes, which inevitably are all XS)
)
(like the kind they use at the carnival to write the prize sizes, which inevitably are all XS)How to Play:
- Before the party, write down different careers on the tags.
- Include everything from jobs no one really wants, like “elephant waste disposal technician” to fabulous jobs, like “Superstar!”
- Secure the balloons to the board with tags attached.
- During the game, guests get 3 darts to try to get the best job possible!
Check out this video for how to set up the balloon board:
14. Land a Job Ring Toss Pool Game
Landing a job isn’t as easy as it should be, but this game will at least keep you cool while trying!
What You Need:
- A decent-sized kiddie pool
- Ring toss rings
- Multiple ring toss “targets”
How to Play:
Similar to the game above, you’ll use waterproof markers to write different jobs on the bottom of the targets.
Guests have to toss the rings and try to “land a job.” Person who lands the best job wins!
For a full-sized pool variation on this game, check out this video:
15. Photo Scavenger Hunt
I love this scavenger hunt idea because you don’t have to think up a huge list, and you can play it without leaving your yard.
What you need:
Two copies of laminated photos of each person from your class.
How to Play:
- Before the party, hide the photos around your yard (and in your house, if you want).
- Break guests up into two teams. First team to find all the photos wins!
16. Glow in the Dark Hopscotch
How fast can you get from 1st to 12th grade? Find out with this fun game to play in the dark!
What You Need:
or 
How to Play:
Draw a hopscotch game on your sidewalk or driveway, but instead of the traditional 8 boxes, make 12 boxes total.
Follow the usual rules of hopscotch, or make it harder by tying your guests hands behind their backs (it throws off their balance).
17. Tug of War
Recapture those fun field day memories with a game of tug of war! This one is great because you can put so many spins on it.
What You Need:
- A strong rope
- A kiddie pool filled with water (or Jello, whipped cream, or pretty much anything else, depending on how messy you want to get!)
How to Play:
Divide teams up evenly and place the pool in the middle. First team to pull the other into the pool wins!
18. Moving Up the Ladder Bean Bag Toss
While it’ll take time to move up the proverbial ladder at work, at least you can do it fast with this game!
What You Need:
- A ladder
- Bean Bags
- Index Cards
How to Play:
- Label the steps, with 10 at the bottom, and increase by 10 until the top.
- Have guests stand about 10 feet away and try to toss their bean bag on the highest step.
- To make it harder, blindfold them!
19. Water Balloon Dodge Ball
While most schools took dodge ball out of gym class, you can still play it at your graduation party. Water balloons are a lot gentler than that rock-hard dodge ball.
What You Need:
Water balloons filled almost to bursting point.
How to Play:
Throw balloons at each other. Anyone who gets hit is out. Easy peasy, but if you want to go with more “official” rules, check out this video:
20. Giant Scrabble Game
How well do you remember all those SAT words? Find out with a fun game of yard scrabble!
What You Need:
Cardboard squares (or wooden ones, if you want to make a game you can reuse year after year)
Markers or paint.
How to Play:
- Follow the directions here to make giant scrabble tiles.
- Grab these official Scrabble rules.
So many awesome things to do at a graduation party, it’s hard to decide where to start! However, to get there, you need to deal with all the writing assignments first. If you are not sure whether you can complete all writing tasks quickly, look for help from academic writing services, choose the most reliable company with expert writers, and delegate your essay or any other assignment. You are so close to graduation! Why deal with too many problems, if you can find professional writers to do it for you?
I suggest planning a mix of indoor and outdoor activities, that way you’re prepared for any last minute mood changes on Mother Nature’s part.