Friday, June 26, 2009
Blast from the Past
By Katie M, with help from Rachel H
Remember the days when our mom would just open the back door and say, “Go play outside and I don’t want to see you around for the next hour.” When I think of that, I crack up because I could not imagine saying those words today – at least not at our house because we don’t have a fenced-in yard. But back then, I gladly left the house (as young as five years old) and would walk as far as a quarter mile to my best friend’s house down the street. And back then no one had fenced-in yards, hardly anyone had play sets (maybe a tree fort if they were lucky), our parents rarely signed us up for organized sports until we were at least middle school age, we never played video games (that is until my older brother got Atari – but then again he never let me play it anyhow).. and all the while I managed to have a pretty incredible childhood! Imagine that!
Creative, imaginative play for children is so important, but our world is changing and it's not so easy anymore to let them run outside. See Dr. Satterwhite's eye-opening blog about this. Plus, it seems kids never just go and "play" without the use of toys and equipment.
So, I thought it would be fun to relive the games we used to play growing up – games now that are considered “classic,” or “old-fashioned” – yikes – and don’t involve electricity, activity fees, or hundreds of dollars at Toys R’ Us! But no matter how old these games are, they’re still fun – and you’d be surprised how much your own children will get a kick of them today. I even included links for directions on each game in case you’re either too young to remember these games, or you just never heard of them!
At the end of this post, if we left out any “oldies but goodies” from your childhood, please add your games below in the comments section.
Games We Used to Play
Hopscotch
Monkey in the Middle
Tug-O-War
Hide N’ Seek
Musical Chairs
Duck, Duck, Goose
Badminton
Freeze Tag
Ghost in the Graveyard
Dodgeball
Potato Sack Race
Wheelbarrow Race
Marbles
Jacks
Categories
Flashlight Tag
Wiffle ball
Four Square
Kick Ball
Kick the Can
Red Light, Green Light
Red Rover
Oliver Twist - You bounce a ball up against a wall and catch it over and over as you say, "Oliver Twist, you can't do this, so what's the use of trying it? Touch my knee, touch my toe, clap my hands, and under-throw." You do each of those things while bouncing the ball, and under-throw means throw it under your leg, against, the wall, and then catch. Then you do it again, but this time you let it bounce once before catching. Then you do it again and let it bounce twice before catching. Keep going until you can't do it anymore!
Say, Say Old Playmate - You can do it to this as you clap your own hands and then clap a friend's hands - "Say Say Old Playmate (clap-clap), come out and play with me (clap-clap), and bring your dollies three (clap-clap), climb up my apple tree (clap-clap) slide down my rainbow (clap-clap), into my cellar door (clap-clap), , and we'll be jolly friends(clap-clap), , forever more(clap), more(clap), , many many more more!"
Miss Mary Mack - This can be a hand-clapping game or jump rope - "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in Black, Black, Black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back, she asked her mother, mother, mother, for fifty cents, cents, cents, to see the elephants, elephants, elephants, jump the fence, fence, fence, they jumped so high, high, high, they never came back, back, back, til the fourth of July, July, July, big lie!"
What did we forget? Add your favorites below!
6 comments:
I had forgotten about so many of these. I can't wait to read these to my children and pick a few to try out.
One more I can add is Capture the Flag. We played that all the time with the other kids in our neighborhood.
I loved SPUD!! You number the participants from 1 to however many kids there are, the first player throws the ball straight up and calls out a number and then all the kids skedaddle. The player whose number is called catches the ball, and yells freeze! All the other players freeze. The player with the ball takes three steps towards another player while holding it and then tries to roll the ball into the frozen player. The frozen player may move any part of their body but not their feet. If the player is hit, they get a letter of SPUd in order, if the player is not hit the roller gets a letter. When you have SPUD you are out. The winner is the last player without spud. SO fun!!
I had three brothers, so we played a lot of War and Cowboys and Indians.
This just brought back some great childhood memories. We played Flashlight Tag (we called it Spotlight Tag) every night in the Summer. Do kids still play Marco...Polo at the pool anymore? We drove the adults crazy playing this everyday.
We played a lot of flashlight tag when I lived in Chicago. Another great thing I remember as a child was getting a jar and collecting as many lightning bugs as I could. Thanks for bringing back those memories! And yes, we played Marco Polo in the pool all the time!!
I learned "flush tag" as an adult. My kids loved it. It was definitely a workout for my thighs. Lol �� Thank you for sharing these fun memories.
Post a Comment