Once the pool contractor you hired is paid for a job well done, it’s time to make some good use of your new pool! Since it’s summertime, you and your family (as well as your neighbors and friends, quite possibly) will want to be in there all the time. Instead of spending all your pool time “hanging out” in the pool, jumping in and out of the pool over and over again, and doing laps, consider incorporating some fun pool games so you can all enjoy your new pool even more. Whether you’ve invited a few friends or neighbors over on a hot day, are hosting a pool party for your kids or an adults-only pool party, or just looking for some new ways to spend time with your family, pool games can add a lot of fun to any get-together.

To start, you can play all kinds of pool games using simply a ball or other throwing device. With a football, you can go from playing catch with one or a few other pool mates to an all-out game of water football with 10 or 20 people (guys against girls works great). Set up a pool net, get out a beach ball or actual volleyball and play a game of water volleyball in the pool. If you have a poolside basketball net, you can also play some one-on-one (or 10-on-10) water basketball.

Water polo, a swimming/handball-type game, is another great idea for those who enjoy competition and team sports. Keep in mind that you’ll need some water polo equipment, enough players, and an understanding of the rules of the game before playing.

If traditional team-based sports like water football, water volleyball, water basketball, and water polo aren’t your thing, there are plenty of other water games and activities you can try with your friends and family. Tossing around a frisbee in the pool, for example, is a pool-time favorite. If you have water balloons, you can play non-competitive water-balloon “volleyball,” a water-balloon toss (throwing them back and forth until they break), or even a water balloon fight with two teams on opposite ends of the pool. One simple game you can play that doesn’t require anything but your bodies is a simple race from one end of the pool to the next. Mix it up a bit by using different types of swim strokes (front crawl, back crawl, butterfly, underwater).

A coin toss game also works great. This game involves throwing coins into the pool (which will sink to the bottom) and having a “race” to see who can get the coins first. Rather than simply throwing a few pennies into the pool and have the pennies be the prize, consider throwing in a bunch of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Alternatively, incorporate some cool prizes for whoever gets the most number of (or value in) coins.

Finally, try a wet T-shirt relay race, in which your pool party guests are split up into two teams, and each team is given one oversized T-shirt. The teams line up and the first person in line of each team must put on the huge shirt, swim to the opposite end of the pool and back, pass on the shirt to the next person, and so on, until everyone’s had one turn. The first team to finish is the winner.