Outdoor Games for Kids

This is a very good game, and to play it properly there must be in the centre of the playground a small hill or hillock.

Tops. The peg-top appears to be a modern invention, but the whip-top is of great antiquity, it having been used in remote times by the Grecian boys; it was well known at Rome in the days of Virgil, and in England as early at least as the fourteenth century, when its form was the same as it is now.

This, if well managed, is a very comical game. The players are arranged as in Fugleman, the player who enacts Simon standing in front.

The Apple Mill is made by boring a hole in a nut, just large enough to pass a thin skewer through; the kernel should then be extracted, and another hole bored in the side of the nut, as A in the annexed figure.

Make a mark on the ground at a place called the “starting point.” At ten yards’ distance from this make another, called the “spring.”

This game can be played by any number of boys, who must all join hands; the game is begun by the outside players at each end of the line holding the following dialogue:

AUNT SALLY is an amusing game of a very simple character, consisting essentially in throwing at a small object.

Various games are in vogue among boys, in which hopping on one foot is the principal object.

This is a capital game when well played, and the antics and grimaces of boys who are mimics cause great merriment.

Throwing Sticks - This very popular game among the Greeks was by them called Kyndalismos.

This is a game played by hopping on one foot and kicking an oyster-shell or piece of tile from one compartment to the other, without halting the lifted foot, except in one case, to the ground, and without suffering the shell or tile to rest on any of the lines.

A tolerably large ring should be formed by several boys standing in a circle and joining hands;

Cat and Mouse Game. This sport, which is of French origin, is for two players only.

This is an old Greek game, and, like very many simple boys’ games, has retained its popularity to the present day.

This is very simple play. The ball is thrown into the air by one player, the others standing round him. He calls out the name of the player, for whom the ball is thrown.

Quoits game. The game of Quoits is very excellent. It seems to have derived its name from the ancient discus, and with us in the present day is a circular plate of iron perforated in the middle, not always of one size, but larger or smaller to suit the strength or convenience of the several candidates.

This is a capital game for the summer months. The players divide themselves into two parties, one party remaining at a spot called “Bounds,” and concealing their faces, while the other party goes out and hides. After waiting for a few minutes, the home party shouts, “Coming, coming, coming.”

In this game four or five stones or marks must be placed on the ground, as in the annexed figure, A, B, C, D, E, about twelve or fifteen yards asunder; these marks are called bases, and one of them, as A, is styled “home.”

This game, as its name denotes, is played by means of nine pins, which are set up in a regular order, the aim of the players being to throw down as many as possible in the fewest attempts.

This game is played by two boys, each of whom takes a smooth round pebble.