# Activities/Games You Played In Your Elementary (Grade) School Playground/Schoolyard: **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192 "2003-12-10T20:45:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AmericanMaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@AmericanMaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmericanMaid)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/41 "2003-12-12T14:35:01Z")
Public elementary school, '80 to '85, in MA. I think I’ve only played hopscotch twice in my life - it bored me. I played **tag (regular and TV), red light/greenlight, Simon Says, tetherball, foursquare, capture the flag, Red Rover, jump rope** (I just could never get the hang of double dutch) **MASH, and the folded up paper thing** (I don’t think we called it a cootie catcher though). Anyone else remember **The Spades**? It was a pretty complex hand slapping game _“The spades go eeny meeny Pepsikeeny Alla boobilenie Atcha catch liberacha Say the magic word…”_ That’s all I can remember. Then there’s the classics like Miss Mary Mack. Back then we had jelly shoes and jelly bracelets (which are making a comeback now with teenagers associated with a disturbing sex game) Maybe that’s why I didn’t do hopscotch because jumpin in jelly shoes killed. ---
**Author:** ![Contrabass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Contrabass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrabass)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/42 "2003-12-12T18:18:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by deadeyesdad \* > \*\*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. **Butt’s Up** \*\* In my town, we called this **Butt-Ball**. I’m laughing just thinking about it… Only difference was only one select player got the chance to throw the ball at you. Typically, some future baseball pitching star was given the honor. Ouch! This was in 6th grade at a public middle school in an upper middle class suburb of Boston. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/43 "2003-12-12T22:38:35Z")
One game our school had was carems (not sure how it’s spelled). It’s basically like a combination of pool, golf, and pinball. There are little plastic rings, and long wooden sticks you use to hit them similiar to how you hit pool balls. Along the board there are various obstacles along with green areas, numbered 1 through 8. You had to shoot your carem into the green areas in order, which meant bouncing it off obstacles and even your opponent’s carem. I was never athletically inclined so I ended up playing this a lot on the playground. Anyone else know what I’m talking about? ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/44 "2003-12-12T23:11:01Z")
Wow, I do know about those. While the school never had them (some apprehension about pool cues and little rings in the hands of schoolchildren, I bet) the rec center at the public park had several sets. There were mazes, bowling, mini-shuffleboard, and more. I don’t recall a name for them (we called 'em “that ring-pool thing” and the supervisors knew what we meant), but carom sounds right. ---
**Author:** ![Sketch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Sketch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sketch)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/45 "2003-12-12T23:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Contrabass \* > \*\*In my town, we called this **Butt-Ball**. I’m laughing just thinking about it… Only difference was only one select player got the chance to throw the ball at you. Typically, some future baseball pitching star was given the honor. Ouch! > > This was in 6th grade at a public middle school in an upper middle class suburb of Boston. \*\* We called this appropriately Red Ass. 16 year old male from Ontario here, we also played Handball, Footsies (basically try to stomp on someone’s foot), all sorts of tags, Cops and Robbers, foot hockey, King of the Hill, general wrestling, Bloody Knuckles, catch, and sadly enough, POGS. Also I think MASH is some kind of international thing, I went to Sri Lanka a few years and saw kids playing MASH there- which sort of surprised me. ---
**Author:** ![myrnajean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@myrnajean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myrnajean)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192/46 "2003-12-13T00:55:22Z")
Jail Break - I thought everyone played that! We used to have a front yard with one of those low 1-1/2 foot fences around it and that was the jail. One person would be the jailer, usually the fastest runner, and they would have to catch everyone else. The bounderies were one city block, and you could hide anywhere, but not in buildings. Once they tagged you, you were caught and you had to go inside the fence, and you couldn’t leave until someone else who hadn’t been tagged yet came and tagged you out (jail break). Stickball, of course, in the middle of the street. Skitch - which was when you grabbed the back of a car or bikek while wearing your roller skates and hung on. My sister let go at an inopportune time and was covered in scabs for months. Spin the bottle - Where you spun a pop bottle and had to kiss whom ever it pointed to. Cool if they were cute, not so cool if they were fugly. Garage Jumping - Climb one garage in the alley, then try to jump from one to the other, all the way down the block. Much fun, till that old man came out with a shotgun “GET OFF MY GARAGE!!!” and I jumped and ruined my ankles forever. Ouch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/activities-games-you-played-in-your-elementary-grade-school-playground-schoolyard/218192.md?page=2)