Activities/Games You Played In Your Elementary (Grade) School Playground/Schoolyard:

I started doing a little reminiscing after reading myrnajean’s ”Ugliest Kid in Grade School” thread yesterday and realized I that there are probably 100’s, if not 1000’s of different and unique Schoolyard activities you played as a kid.

My ‘activities assumption’ is based on:[list=a] .[li]National / Cultural Distinctions: Even though all kids (and some of us adults) love to play, I’m all but certain the activities you’ll see being played in Asia would be completely foreign to kids here in North America. []Variable Climates: Even though kids can adapt to just about any situation, it’s usually the weatherman who has final say on what outdoor activities can be played. []Gender roles: They usually dictate what games the boys and girls play.[]Regional Settings: Being a decisive factor in what activities are played. Urban kids have an asphalt/concrete playground, suburban kids usually play in grass-covered schoolyards and rural kids probably have huge, unfenced fields surrounded by wheat or corn crops.[]Generational Differences: Every September a new group of children enter the school. As they’re promoted and the older kids graduate, new games are introduced and the standard ones are all but forgotten.[/list] [/li]
I attended a suburban Elementary School on Long Island, NY in the mid 1970’s (God, I hate reminding myself of that). Our Winter Activities were limited to the occasional snowball fight and who can make the largest snowball. But in spring & autumn the sky was the limit.

1) Rumble: Otherwise known as Kill the Man With the Ball to my co-workers here in the Bronx. The rules were simple: A rubber (or tennis) ball was thrown / bounced off the 2-story brick wall adjacent to the school yard and who ever caught it would run for their lives. Once he was caught (tackled), he went back to the wall and served. I still don’t know how my Mother got all the grass stains off my Sears Toughskins and Jox sneakers.

2) Slapball and Kickball: Slapball is a handball/baseball hybrid and kickball is pretty much self-explanatory. Both were played on the asphalt part of the Schoolyard, where the kindergarteners hung out. There was no other place you could play, unless you wanted to be trampled by the stampede of Rumblers.

3) Ring-A-Leave-E-O: No, I have no idea how it’s spelled. I’m lucky I can remember how it was played. Know to the kids on the north side of town as Fox & Hounds. Even though it was more of a summer break kind of game that you played against the kids on the next block, every once in a while 2 teams would be chosen in the schoolyard. The ‘hiding team’ would be given a 30-count to disappear. Once the ‘finding team’ found & rounded-up all their opponents (saying the mandatory, ‘Ring-A-Leave-E-O, Ring-A-Leave-E-O, 1-2-3, 1-2-3) the roles were reversed. Looking back on it now, because there weren’t all that many places to hide, it was more a game of tackle/slip away.

4) Baseball Cards: Topps was tops. Baseball cards were totally engrained in our youth culture. They were a status symbol, where every boys was to collect all 660 cards in the set. The baseball season brought all kinds of trading card rituals[list=a][li]Scaling: Where you and your opponent would fling the card toward a wall from a distance of about 20’ away. Closest to the wall won. It was a great way of getting rid of your doubles and triples. Rules had to be enunciated & negotiated before any scaling was done. You could call:[/li]‘No Larry’s or No Flurs’ Which meant if the card wasn’t flung correctly, you’d still lose.
No Landsies’ Which meant distance mattered, even if the 2nd card scaled landed atop yours.
if the card wasn’t flung correctly, you’d still lose.[li]Flipping:Where 2 opponents stood head to head and flipped the cards toward the ground. You either called ‘Matchies’ or ‘No Matchies’ and depending on whether the cards matched/unmatched face-up or down determined the winner.[]Coloring: I don’t remember all the rules and nuances, but basically you’d alternately flip one card at a time one card face up onto a pile. If you matched the trim color or team of your opponent’s card you won the pile. []Throw-Ups or Toss-Ups: Were just about an everyday (and usually unannounced) occurrence. A handful of cards were thrown up into the wind and mayhem, ala “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ would ensue. There were 2 types of throw-ups:[/li]The Announced Throw-Ups: When the rich kids, in an attempt to gain popularity, would buy a triple pack of cards @ the stationary store up the block, climb up on the roof and throw them down into the crowd below.
The Unannounced Toss-Ups: When an older bully would steal a smaller kids cards, keep the few he needed and toss away the bulk of the evidence into the wind.[/list]
With very few exceptions, all the activities I engaged in during my grade school years were boy-things. The only things I can recall the girls doing were:

  1. Playing hopscotch,
  2. Jumping rope,
  3. Practicing their Ubbay-Wubbay ‘Zoom Talk’ and
  4. Manipulating this 8-sided piece of paper with flap doors. Occasionally they’d ask me to pick a number between 1 and 6 & proceed to give me my fortune.

Well, now that I’ve wandered down memory lane, I have this strange urge to ask the guys here at work if they’re up for a game of Rumble. I had fun writing this & reliving some of my childhood experiences. Even if the server eats or loses my post – it was worth it. Come to think of it, I’m gonna teach my 2 daughters some of the things I used to do. Maybe one of them will catch on with today’s Yujio generation.

So tell us, (I for one would like to know), what were some of your schoolyard rituals?

British Buldog.

Involves about 30 kids, but can be played with almost any number from about 4 onwards (In hindsight it seems amazing that so many kids were able to get together and participate in one game without adult involvement)

The object is to get to one end of the playground to the other without being tigged (touched). The people who are ‘on’ (the the people doing the tigging) have to shout ‘British Buldog’. as this is shouted the 30ish other kids have to get to the other side without being tigged. Each kid who is tigged joins the tigging team.

The winner is the one person remaining when all others have been tigged.

Relievo

This game was complicated so I may not remember it all. One person counts while the others bugger off to hide. Then the counting person goes off to find them. Each person he finds (and tigs) must stand at the ‘base’ (where the counter counted). If one of the hiders gets to the base without being tigged he can relieve all the tigged players by shouting ‘1 2 3 relievo’. The tigged players get to run and hide (or just evade).
Another one I can’t remember the name of…

One person counts and the others hide. After counting, every person he finds, and tigs joins him as a finder. The last person to be found is the winner.

Boy I miss those days!!

Bullshit- we didn’t play at school.

You had to kick a football (soccer ball) against a wall with just one touch, the person who was next in the queue had to do the same. The idea was to make it difficult for the person after you to be able to kick the ball at the wall. If you failed you would add a letter and the game would start again with the next person in the queue (being able to place the ball wherever he wants). The first person to have spelled ‘bullshit’ with their failures would have to stand by the wall and let all the others kick the ball at him as hard as they could, without being allowed to dodge.

wembley (any UK dopers remember this one…?)

It’s basically footy (soccer) with only one goal, and the possibility of more than two teams. The goalkeeper is neutral. The other players were in teams of about 3 each, the first team to score a certain number of goals was the winner, there could be any number of teams.
I could keep listing the games we used to play all day. I sure do miss those days. Growing up is cruel and shit.

Some more…
Keep Ups (I am sure we had a better name than that, but I can’t remember)

You have to keep the ball in the air, or not let it hit the ground more than once between kicks. You can pass the ball to any player. If your pass is judged to be ok, but the person you pass to lets the ball hit the ground more than once they add a letter to their score (again - to spell out some pre-set word). However if the pass was judged to be bad (the person you passed to had no reasonable chance of keeping the ball ‘in play’) then you add the letter to your score. (I think the loser of this game had the same fate as the loser of ‘bullshit’ if I remember correctly)

Another one… 2 ‘sides’ one ‘side’ is the goalkeeper, the other ‘side’ is one or more players. The goalkeeper counts down from a certain number. The players have to keep the ball up with volleys (the ball is alowed to touch the ground once) If the players fail to do this, the goalie scores a point. If the players score off one of the volleys before the countdown is finished the players score a point (and the countdown begins again from a lower number). If the goalie saves AND catches one of the goal attempts, he scores a point. If the players fail to score within the time limit…heck I don’t know the exact rules, it was a damn complicated game with multiple levels of counting and number of goal blah blah.

ARGHH! I wasted my 5000th post!

Elementary schoolyard? Hmmm.

  1. Kickball.

  2. Tag.

  3. Get beat up a lot.

That pretty much covers grades K-6 for me.

Cartooniverse

A variant of ‘British Buldog’ called ‘Bullrush’, which differs in two ways:

  • You can’t have to say anything
  • Instead of tagging, you tackle the guy (headhigh tackles are illegal).

Dodge/Duck shooting, where you line up against a wall and take turns throwing a tennis ball at the lineup until you hit a guy. The person who gets hit gets throws the ball. Usually considered Illegal to hit below the waist or above the shoulders. Failure to adhere to the rule resulted in a free shot at pointblank range.

Ball tag. Just like regular tag, but you can only tag by throwing a tennis ball at the opponent.

Cricket, with a couple of alterations.

  • Whoever fields the ball gets to bowl it.
  • Who ever gets the wicket bats (if it’s caught behind, the wicketkeeper gets it)
  • If the bat hits the ball, you have to run.

Unorganised rugby. Two ‘teams’ (for a lack of a better word) chase the ball carrier either shouting at the guy to give him the ball, or attempting to mob him. When a tackle has been made, the breakdown results in a ‘heap’, results in a massed doggy pile.

Hussle/handball/squares. Aussie/Kiwi dopers should know what I’m talking about.

In retrospect, it’s amazing we only had one major injury in my school term.

Errr… should be “Who ever gets the wicket, gets to bats”

We played British Bulldog, but instead of just touching you had to actually lift the person off the ground.

We also played what JohnBckWLD called “Rumble” but we called it “Smear the Queer.” Instead of bouncing it off a wall, the ball was thrown straight up in the air as hard as high as possible. DISCLAIMER: Since none of us in the 4th grade at the time knew what “queer” meant we looked it up and found that it was defined as ‘strange, unusual, out of the ordinary’ and we found it fitting that the guy with the ball was called “the queer.” I sincerely doubt that any of us had any idea of any other connotations at the time. I don’t know where the name came from nor the intentions behind naming the game that.

Handball, involving a huge brick wall and a variety of rules: rainbows, onehanders, no bouncers, etc. If the ball bounced twice before you hit it, or went past a marked line, or went over the wall, you were out and the next person in line got in.

Red Rover, which didn’t get played in view of the monitors because the most popular tactic was to raise your arms as the runner came barreling towards you and try to clothesline him.

One year the rage was for a group of boys to chase a girl until she ran into the girl’s restroom–varied by girls chasing the boys until they hid out in the restroom. We spiced it up by trying to pull the boy into the girl’s restroom and vice versus–I swear we all thought we’d die if we went all the way into the opposite sex’s bathroom!

We also played Keep Away where one person had the ball and tried to hold onto it for as long as possible, all while being chased by however many other kids were playing. Being caught often meant being at the bottom of a dogpile. Seeing how our entire playground was blacktop, I don’t know how we all avioded broken bones.

We also played kickball and my favorite, baseball. We usually played the class above or below us, and both girls and boys played. Eventually, most of the girls started sitting on the sidelines cooing at the boys (my school went up to 8th grade, so boy-craziness was rampant), but I always played.

How about tetherball? I got smacked in the face more than once by this contraption. But it was fun!!

So Cal in the early 80s. Suburban private school.

We also played Smear the Queer but we usually used a nerf football. Never got away with it a school but at the High School’s FB game we always played on the grass over the stadium fence in the glow of the lights. I never actually watch a game their until I got in HS.

Butt’s Up- Played with a wall and a tennis ball. The rules were a player would throw the ball against the wall. Then all the other players would try to grab it. You could only touch the ball with one hand. If the ball hit the ground after you touched it, before it hit the wall, you had to run like hell and touch the wall before someone else grabbed it, and threw it to the wall. If you had three messups, in which you did not reach the wall before the ball, you needed to assume the position. Kneeling at the wall with your “butt-up”. All other players would then get a chance to nail you in the ass with the ball from ten yards.Smear the Queer Butt’s Up

Springfield, Illinois: Urban public school.

King of the Hill: One boy would be appointed to stand on the top of the hill (OK, a mound of dirt) and fend off anyone who tried to take his spot. If the King got tackled, his opponent became King. Since the game was rather open-ended, there was no real way to declare a winner.

Smear the Queer: Just like Rumble, only usually played with a Nerf™ football. We’d throw it as high into the air as possible, and whoever caught it became the Queer.

BTW, to repeat BraheSilver’s DISCLAIMER: this was fourth grade, and none of us knew what “queer” meant, beyond the dictionary definition.

Dodgeball: Ah, yes, the bane of soccer moms and cause celebré of right-wing radio hosts. Two teams form (best played with 10 or more per team). A number of balls are given to one team (generally more than one, but less than the number of people on the team). If the ball was thrown at you, you could either try to evade it or catch it. If you caught it, the guy who threw it at you was “out.” If it hit you, you were “out.” If you evaded it, nothing happened. You could pick up the ball off the ground if you wanted to. Once you had possession of the ball, you then threw it at the opposing team, trying to hit an opponent and at the same time not have the ball get caught. Play continued until two people were left standing. They would then throw every ball in the arsenal at one another until one person was left.

Looking back… if I had a nickel for every time I took a shot in the nuts from a well-flung ball in Dodgeball, I’d have all those nickels.

Kickball: Already been discussed.

Tetherball: Already been discussed, but let me just add that I thought this was a stupid game. One taller and stronger kid could totally dominate just by repeatedly smacking the ball. Not a fun game at all.

As for the girls:

Hopscotch: Eddie Izzard does a great routine on how Hopscotch is some mystical thing done in the open by girls, but that holds great mystery to boys. Try to listen to his routine about it if you have a chance.

Telling Fortunes With 8-Sided Pieces of Paper: Yes, we had that, too.

MASH: Somehow it involves telling fortunes by drawing concentric circles on the ground. MASH stands for Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House, and would foretell where you would live.

Wisconsin Catholic grade school…1980-86 or so…a basic classic pre-safety era dangerous playground (gravel, monkey bars, a standalone 8 foot tall or so slide, etc.) and a large paved parking lot that provided lots of room for tag games. But somehow my entire class made it through six grades without a broken limb. I’ll speak to the boys games…

Chicken fights on the monkey bars (probably six feet high). One person would hang on one side, the second person directly opposite. On go you would try to wrap your legs around the other person and they to force them to let go. The girls usually got pissed when we played this because they considered the monkey bars their territory.

Tirewater…the playground had a set of old tractor tires bolted together to make a fort like deal. We used to imagine them as a submarine. But rainwater collected in the top tire. A mean kid could soak a naive kid inside the tires by standing on top of the tires and shaking it and splashing the water out and down onto the hapless kid inside who was too clumsy to crawl out in time.

Tetherball…dink the ball back and forth and then try to hit the other person in the face by unexpectedly slamming the ball.

Dodgeball…it wasn’t dodgeball if it didn’t end ith a kid running to the teacher on playground patrol and thus was frequently banned.

Kickball…it was played, but wasn’t really that popular. We had the classic red “boingy-boingy” kickballs. A really good kick could send the ball onto the flat roof of the school, so you had to be careful.

500…one person threw a ball into the air and a group of people tried to catch it…100 points for catching it on the fly, 50 for one bounce. Once a person had 500 points they became the thrower.

Four-square…hard to hurt people playing this so this wasn’t very popular past first or second grade or so.

Matchbox cars/Transformers/GI Joes on the gnarly tree. The parking lot next to the playground had a neat old tree with the top of its roots exposed. Great for action scenes something approximating what the kids in the commercials always had.

“Olly-olly-oxen free” - a tag game. “Home” was a railing around a basement window well in the upper class wing of the school. You had to touch the railing and shout “olly-olly-oxen-free” to be safe. Don’t recall what “it” had to count to to start the game. 50? 100? Probably 50.

Erode the stump…yeah…not the most exciting “game”…but one year I was friends with the “weird loner überCatholic kid” and we became obsessed with picking apart an old tree stump…no metal tools allowed.

Winter was wonderful because the snow from the parking lot got plowed into a pile over the gravel playground. We played King of the Hill on the pile, but this was another frequently banned game. I remember one spring where the snow was melting fast and I and a few friends made canals in the gravel to channel the meltwater. I wonder if any of them became civil engineers…

By sixth grade the playground was completely remodelled to be more safe. But sadly, I was in town in '02 and went by the school…the playground has since been completely torn down and a tiny soccer field was in its place. Recess must be a dull affair for the kids nowadays.

By 7th grade I had learned to stay in the library, lest a more focused version of Smear the Queer find me whether I wanted to play or not.

I did read all the fiction through authors with last names beginning with “T” by the time I went to high school, however.

I played a game remarkably like deadeyedad’s Butts Up. We called it Stingball. Only difference is instead of trying to get to the wall before another player threw the ball to the wall, you had to get to the wall before another player beaned your ass.

That was a fun game, I miss it.

A Cootie Catcher! That’s what that is!
I remember doing the MASH things, too.

Suburban public school, early to mid 70s.
We also played Smear the Queer (add in my dislclaimer about the word, too), Kickball, regular Dodgeball, Greekdodge (a team sport kinda like volleyball, but without the net), King of the Hill and hopscotch (painted on the sidewalks leading to the hardtop).
We had Foursquare courts painted on the hardtop, too.

I remember Chicken Fights on the Monkey Bars, too. I never particpiated in them, though. That was strictly for the boys.

Another vote for Smear the Queer (no clue what queer meant), hardcore dodgeball (if you weren’t aiming for their head to rattle their skull or their feet to knock 'em down, why play?), four square, tether ball, and any number of other games that had more to do with domination and humiliation than I care to remember…

About the only issue I had was when playing dodge ball, it could be touch to get our of the way when my JC Penney super bell bottoms trailed, like, a foot behind me…at least, when playing smear the quest, my polyester silk shirt was so slick that it was hard to grab.

To think, that just a couple of years later, we’d move from trying to destroy each other as boys, to trying to figure out when girls began to exist…sigh ah, to be a 7th grader, ogling 8th grade girls in Ditto and Chemin de fer jeans…Lisa Banks sure was a fox.

er…that’s “tough” to play.

And now that I think about it, I think we called them “elephant bells”…they went from snug at the knee to, like a foot in diameter at the leg opening…god, I looked like a shmoe.

Urban neighborhood but not high-density, 1970’s, Archie-Bunker-like housing with a few five-story apartment buildings mixed in, Irish and Italians, no playground equipment at all except one basketball hoop, fenced-in asphallt square, severe fiscal crisis, no equipment issued, had to bring everything from home.

Lots of Red Rover and Ring-o-Leavee-o; a game called Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which would be a complicated movement that you had to duplicate a step behind the leader (she’d pat her head and then start patting her knees, and when she started that you’d be patting your head and had to remember to start patting your knees while she waved her arms in the air or something). The fortune-telling folding paper thing, yep. We girls would also do a matching-numerology game with people’s names converted to numbers or something and certain combos meant certain things.

Guys played ball games (only allowed wiffle bats and balls) or various types of handball. Girls did a lot of jumprope, mostly single ropes but when older double dutch (although we were mostly white and sucked at it :wink: ) Lots of skinned knees due to the asphalt (and girls had to wear skirts, in a public school, slacks during winter and no jeans ever) so we didn’t really run around a lot.

God it was boring.

Louisiana in the late sixties: Elementary school

Pop the Whip: Form a line holding hands, with the oldest and strongest kid at the lead. The lead person would start the line in a direction, eventually picking up speed. Once the entire group were moving along at a good clip, the leader would start zig-zagging. This would create a tremendous amount of tork on the poor kids at the end of the line. This is where all the action was taking place. The idea was to see how many kids could be sent flying off the end of the whip. There were frequent stops to reload the end of the line.