Children’s games
Kids naturally make games out of most activities. Often the games they play need few props. When I was little we played hopscotch, jacks, skipped rope. We played pick up sticks, tag, hide and seek, dodgeball. We would go into the back alley and play Kick the Can till dark and of course we played Red Rover and blind man’s bluff. Some kids, often boys, enjoyed playing marbles .
What is interesting to study culturally is the permanence of some games, each generation.
As toddlers we learned action games, hand games, clapping games.
Duck, duck, goose
London Bridge is falling down
Pata cake pata cake
Ring around the Rosie
Teddy bear teddy bear turn around
This little piggy went to market
Peek a boo
As we got older we learned other games – tag, jumping, hiding, hand clapping, memory games, some that needed props and many that just needed creativity.
A hunting we will go
Blind man’s bluff
British bull dog
Button, button, who’s got the button”
Capture the flag
Chopsticks
Dodgeball
Jumping jacks
Have you ever ever ever in your long-legged life?
Hide and seek
Hopscotch
I packed my bag and in it I put
I Spy
Making snow men, snow forts, snow angels
Miss Lucy had a baby who was sick sick sick
Miss Mary Mack
Mother may I?
Nick, nack, paddy whack
Roll over, roll over
One 2, 3 alarie
One potato two potato
Poor Pussy (a game to try not to laugh)
Red Rover
Rock paper scissors
Shimmy shimmy koko pop
Simon Says
Tag including freeze tag, statues
The hokey pokey
This old man, he played one
Tree fort building
Water fights
What time is it Mr. Wolf?
The universal nature of these rhymes, their timelessness was very striking when in the 1980s one of my kids got very sick. My mother flew into the city where we were living to help take care of the others while I spent time with the baby who I feared may not live.. My mother was amazing. She could occupy the time of two preschoolers with zero props. The kids were fine- quietly playing with their grandma, these little hand rhyme games. I saw love, passed down through the generations. The baby lived.
Gestures
In the 2000s when our grandchildren were arriving, it was heartening for us to discover they also liked some of our games. They also had new handclapping ones. They did double hand slaps and chops. There was a whole gestural language I did not know well but hilarious to see.
The language of gestures is an entire other language kids are taught and we learned it too, that magical way kids learn without formal instruction, just imitation Some of the gestures were from earlier times and some became passe. We as teens moved on to new gestures so the appropriateness of a gesture became a marker for how cool you were or weren’t
1917 – British soldiers had used a thumb up signal to mean all is well.
1941 – In world war two pilots used the thumbs up to signal they were ready for takeoff.
1941- Churchill popularized the V for victory sign, the letter for Victoire in French.
1950s- The A OK gesture of the thumb and forefinger touching became popular though it was an ancient gesture that in early Rome had even meant a kiss.
Gestures sometimes had a cultural meaning. Hand on heart meant deep feeling and in some countries pounding the chest showed deep emotion. In my cohort we did not have those when I was little. But the handshake was a rite of passage that we were taught to use with adults to show respect.
It was not until the 1970s that the fist bump became popular. The elbow bump was much later.
Handshakes were a real marker of character and we were taught the etiquette of them, and of standing when a senior entered, of men always standing to shake hands with a lady. That is to say that our parents had such etiquette and my cohort did these less. Handshakes became fun codes among friends and there were various rituals that marked such camaraderie. To know the handshake meant you were one of the group.
The high five became popular in 1977 when a fellow player congratulated Dusty Baker after an LA Dodgers home run. It was a gesture my cohort had to work hard to try to use it.
Toys and board games
What kids care a lot about are toys. In earlier generations our parents had had dolls and building blocks . Our parents, who were kids in the 1920s, had wooden puzzles, teddy bears, wind-up carrousel toys, Tinker Toys and if they had money, toy sewing machines and cast iron toy cars. During the Depression the kids had playing cards and toy guns, dolls with a china head but cloth body, and rag dolls. For our parents being able to provide a wider range of toys was a celebration.
Scrabble was invented in 1948. Risk was invented in 1957 and we were only 8 so still too young. But as these games were around and we got bigger we did latch onto some of them.
Of course it depended a lot on what a family enjoyed. Here are some of the toys from the 1950s
1953 – Matchbox tin vehicles
1954 – the Frisbee
1955 – Lego
1955 – Silly Putty
1956 – Play Doh
1956 – Yahtze
1957- the plastic push toy “Corn Popper”
1958 – Hula Hoop
1958- pogo stick
1958- the hula hoop was a new craze. We were 9
1959- Barbie doll , 11.5 inches tall with adult figure, albeit unusually slim waisted
We also in the fifties had erector sets and Tonka trucks.
Mr. Potato Head
Radio Flyer wagons
Davy Crocket caps
Sorry – board game
Monopoly- board game
Rummoli
In the 60s we had
1960 – Chatty Cathy
1960 – Etch a Sketch
1961 – Ken doll
1963 – toy Easy Bake oven
1964 – G. I .Joe
1965 – Barrel of Monkeys
1966 – the game Twister was invented
1967 – Video game on TV screen, Chase
1968 – Hot Wheels
1968 – Hot Wheels toy cars with wheels that could turn
1969 – Lego Duplo
1969 – Nerf ball
In the 1960s table hockey was invented
Card games and board games
Some of us grew up watching our parents pay cribbage, canasta or chess. In my house we played a lot of Chinese checkers and Snakes and Ladders. Parents often taught the kids their favorite card games including Crazy 8s and Old Maid.
It was an era when families did play board games sometimes together. That became less common with later generations.
1880- Canasta
1933 – Monopoly- a board game by Charles Darrow, revamped from an earlier Landlord’s Game
1950s- many were taught Snap, Crazy Eights, Old Maid card games
1952 – Scrabble
1954- Yahtzee – dice game
1957 – Risk
1960s- many of us got good at playing card game variations of Solitaire
1966 – Twister
1978- Trivial Pursuit – but by this time we were already nearly 30
The thing is – there is only a brief window for toys. Kids are too young for some and then quickly feel too old for others. Teenage girls rarely want to be seen playing with any toys that seem babyish, particularly dolls. For many teens the interest shifted to sports or fashion.
Chess
In some households the parents taught the kids chess. Mine did not but it was a favorite activity in some homes.
1957 – Bobby Fischer is chess champion at age 13
1960s – Calgary chess club is formed and hosts community tournaments
1969 – Boris Spassky wins world chess competition
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