Remember the games you used to play as a kid outside? Spring is the perfect time to teach your own kids some of those forgotten favourites!
Here are some of my favourites. They require very little equipment and most can be adapted based on the ages and number of kids involved.
Hide and Seek:
Most parents have played some version of this game with their kids since hiding and seeking is a favourite activity of small children. There are countless variations on this game: sometimes you count to twenty, sometimes one hundred. Sometimes there is a home base that you can run to in order to be ‘safe’, sometimes you just wait to be found. A perennial favourite with all ages!
Four Square:
Probably my favourite as a kid! This ball game is played on a square court (usually drawn with sidewalk chalk on pavement, about 8ft by 8ft) divided into four smaller squares, numbered one through four. One player stands in each of the squares, with the highest ranked player in number one (the ‘captain’), lowest in number four. You bounce the ball among the players, bouncing once in the other person’s square before that person catches it. If you don’t catch the ball, you move down in the ranking to square 4. Or if there are more than 4 participants, you are eliminated with another player rotating in to square four.
Hopscotch:
Use some sidewalk chalk and make a hopscotch grid (as complicated or as simple as you like). Number the squares from one to nine. Start by tossing a small rock onto Square 1. Hop over the rock and hop with a single foot or both feet (to follow the hopscotch pattern) all the way to the end. Turn around and come back, stopping on Square 2. Balancing on one foot, pick up the rock in Square 1 and hop over Square 1 to the start. Continue this pattern with Square 2. And so on. If you toss your rock and miss the correct square, your turn is over.
Tag:
It seems that everyone knows how to play tag, but just in case it wasn’t in your childhood game repertoire, here is how you play: a group of kids decides who will be ‘it’. That person chases the other kids around, trying to tag one of them with their hand. The newly tagged person is now ‘it’. The game ends when everyone is tired of playing. There are endless variations of this game too, including my favourite: flashlight tag.
Cat’s Cradle and Clapping Games:
While these games can are not necessarily outdoor games, I decided to include them anyway since I have many fond memories of lazy afternoons attempting to master a new clapping game or Cat’s Cradle shape with friends.
Cat’s Cradle is a game played by two or more people, requiring only a piece of string (about 75cm) tied in a circle. The players transfer string shapes back and forth between their fingers, and in the process create new ones! There are lots of excellent instructional videos on YouTube if you need a refresher.
Clapping games are an easy way to help your child develop important motor skills, plus they’re tons of fun! Probably the most familiar and simple clapping game is Pat-a-Cake but there are many more rhymes and clapping patterns out there, some of which are quite complicated and ideal for older kids (for example, ‘Miss Mary Mack’, ‘Say, Say, My Playmate’).
What was your favourite outdoor game as a kid?
