LOOBY LOO – Playground Games for Kids

5 to 60 or more players. / Indoors; out of doors.

Here we dance, looby, looby, looby.
Here we dance, looby, looby, light.
Here we dance, looby, looby, looby, loo,
Every Saturday night.

Put your right hand in
Put your right hand out
Give your right hand a shake, shake, shake,
Hinkumbooby round-about.

Here we dance, looby, looby, looby, etc.

Put your left hand in, etc.

Here we dance, looby, looby, looby, etc.

Put your two hands in, etc.
Put your right foot in, etc.
Put your left foot in, etc.
Put your two feet in, etc.
Put your right elbow in, etc.
Put your left elbow in, etc.
Put your two elbows in, etc.
Put your right ear in, etc.
Put your left ear in, etc.
Put your head way in (bend deeply from the waist).

LOOBY LOO - Playground Games for Kids

The players stand in a ring, clasping hands. For the first two lines of the chorus,—

Here we dance, looby, looby, looby,
Here we dance, looby, looby, light,

the players sway from one foot to the other, throwing the free foot across the other in sort of a balance movement in rhythm to the music. On the last two lines of this verse,—

Here we dance, looby, looby, looby, loo,
Every Saturday night,

the circle gallops halfway around to the left for the first line, and reverses the action, returning to place on the last line.

For the alternate verses which describe action the movements are suited to the words; for instance, when the left hand is called for, the players lean far forward and stretch the left hand into the ring while singing the first line, turn around, and stretch the left hand outward for the second line, shake the hand hard on the third line, and on the last line jump or spin completely around.

This is a very ancient game, supposed to have originated in a choral dance, probably in celebration of the rites of some deity, in which animal postures were assumed or animal rites were an object. Later, it was an old court dance, stately and decorous as the minuet.

Excerpt from the book:
GAMES FOR THE PLAYGROUND, HOME, SCHOOL AND GYMNASIUM BY JESSIE H. BANCROFT
New York, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922

GAMES FOR THE PLAYGROUND HOME SCHOOL AND GYMNASIUM BY JESSIE H BANCROFT