Spring officially arrived Thursday, bringing with it promises of blue skies and fresh breezes, sunny afternoons and the scent of freshly mowed grass. That alone should be enough to lure you off the couch. But if it isn't, perhaps a little friendly competition will entice you out of doors.

Even before there were lawns, there were lawn games. Some of these games can trace their history to hundreds of years B.C.

Handout (ENLARGE)

Advanced 6-player Croquet Set costs $59.99 at Target.

see caption (ENLARGE)

Ladder Golf is a different take on lawn golf.

RELATED LINK: • Children find unicycling healthy fun • More shopping stories

The beauty of such games is that they can be played by people of all ages and skill levels. They work as fun family activities and play-a-little, drink-a-little pastimes for singles. And they provide a little exercise.

Here you'll find five lawn games you may wish to try, along with a little history about each and an estimate, from calorie-count.com, of how much you'll burn as you play.

Let the games begin!

HORSESHOES

Horseshoes is a pretty simple game. Pitch a horseshoe in the direction of a stake. Ring the stake, earn two points; land within 6 inches of the stake, earn one point. Hence the adage, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."

It's a fitting expression, given that the game has military roots. Legend has it that ancient Greek soldiers passed the time throwing worn-out horseshoes at stakes, though some say horses didn't wear shoes then.

In any case, the game had certainly caught on with military men by the time of the Revolutionary War, and the National Horseshoe Pitching Association says that its formation stems from mule shoe-pitching tournaments played by Union soldiers during the Civil War.

Horseshoes is cousin to the game Washers, played with smaller, circular discs thrown into cups buried in the ground; and Quoits, also played with circular discs pitched at stakes. A standard horseshoe court features two stakes 40 feet apart , each sticking above the ground about 14 inches. But of course, you can tailor your version to your yard.

Calories burned in an hour: 204

Average price range: $20-$40

BADMINTON

Bring a little bit of the Olympics to your backyard with badminton.

Yes, badminton is an Olympic sport, though at that level it's played only indoors. Two or four players meet on either side of the net in this rackets-and-shuttlecock game, the origins of which stretch back to ancient Greece.

It gained popularity in the 1700s in India, where it was called Poona, and British officers stationed there brought it home with them. (Badminton is the name of a British country estate where the game was first popularized in England.)

Today, athletes from Asia and Denmark dominate the sport. At the competitive level, the rules can get pretty complicated. But for your backyard, just know this: Every time you fail to get the shuttlecock over the net, your opponent scores a point, even if you served. First one to 21 wins.

Calories burned in an hour: 306

Average price range: $15-$40

LADDER GOLF

This relatively young game is known by a variety of names — hillbilly golf, bola ball, ladder ball, bolo polo, tower ball, flingy ball ... and the list goes on. Some say it's a derivative of an old cowboy game.

Whatever you call it, it's played basically the same way: Players toss a bola — two small balls (usually golf balls) connected by a piece of rope — toward a ladder of sorts, trying to land it on one of the rungs. In most versions of the game, the higher the rung, the greater the points.

As in croquet, bocce and petanque, you can also try to hurt your opponents by knocking their bolas off the ladder. Each player or team tosses three bolas per round. First one to 21 wins.

Calories burned in an hour: N/A

Average price range: $20-$100

BOCCIE/PETANQUE

These two outdoor bowling games hail from Italy and France, respectively. In both games, individuals or teams toss a small ball — called a pallino in boccie and a cochonnet, or jack, in petanque – and then roll larger balls toward it, trying to get as close to it as possible.

What makes it different than, say, horseshoes, is that players can also hit the jack itself, resetting the target and changing who's closest to it. No one knows who will win until the last ball is rolled.

Boccie balls are larger and heavier than petanque balls, and boccie players traditionally give a little run before tossing the ball underhanded. Petanque players must stand with their feet still and usually toss the ball palm down, to create a little backspin.

In its competitive form, boccie is played on a hard court; petanque is played on a greater variety of terrain. For backyard purposes, the two are fairly interchangeable. You'll find a lot more sets for sale under the name boccie, however.

Calories burned in an hour: N/A, but bowling burns 204

Average price range: $20-$70

CROQUET

Young players may know of croquet thanks to "Alice in Wonderland," in which the queen challenges Alice to a version played with live flamingos and hedgehogs. Gen Xers may associate the game with the movie "Heathers." And the artistically inclined may know it from the paintings of Winslow Homer, Édouard Manet or Norman Rockwell.

Croquet comes in many forms with many different rules, but the traditional backyard game is played with seven wickets arranged in two connected diamonds that somewhat resemble a figure 8. One additional wicket is placed just behind each of the diamond's end points. Players use mallets to whack balls through wickets in a particular order and hit stakes placed beyond the double wickets. They can also try to knock their opponents' balls off-course.

Experts say the game is as much about strategy as accuracy, giving some hope to the less coordinated among us.

Calories burned in an hour: 170

Average price range: $15-$100