Games Outdoor Kolonial Kids

Overview	Parlor	Group	Outdoor
Downloads

---

Although boys and girls played many of the same games indoors, they often played different games outside. Boys did not take part in clapping, skipping, or string games. Some outdoor games were rough -- even dangerous! The goal was to show which boy was the strongest and bravest. Girls were seldom allowed to participate in team sports or contests such as tug-of-war, as parents believed that rough play was "unladylike.".

Individual Games:

• Battledore and Shuttlecock: This game is an early version of badminton. The battledore is the racket and the shuttlecock is the birdie. The goal of the game is to keep the shuttlecock in the air as long as possible.


• 
  
  Graces: The game of Graces was an outdoor game played by two players. It was considered a proper game for young ladies, although boys sometimes joined in, the players then being either two girls or a girl and a boy. Each player had a stick. Using the sticks, the players tossed a hoop to one another. Some people say that it got its name because it encouraged children to make graceful movements. To play, you’ll need:
  
  • four wooden dowels, about 18 inches long
  • a wooden hoop about 9 inches across
  • several pieces of brightly colored ribbon
  
  
  1. Wrap the wooden hoop with the ribbon, leaving the ends hanging off.  The ribbon cushions the hoop, making it softer to catch, and the hanging ends flutter in the breeze and slow the flight of the hoop through the air.
  
  
  2. Each player has two dowels.  The players stand a few feet apart, facing each other.  One player crosses her dowels in front of her like a pair of open scissors, hanging the hoop near the cross.  When she pulls the sticks apart, the hoop flies off toward her opponent.  The other player tries to catch the hoop on her sticks.  It takes some practice to be able to aim the hoop correctly.
  
  
  3. Keep track of how many times you catch the hoop.  The first person to catch the hoop ten times wins.


• 
  
  Marbles: These were very popular with pioneer boys, who saved and traded them, carrying their marble bags with them everywhere they went.  The first marbles were made of clay.  Later, marbles were made of glass.  These were more popular because they were more beautiful and more perfectly round, which made them easier to play with.  The most sought-after marbles were made of a mineral called agate and known as aggies.  A shooter marble is slightly larger than the others (called nibs ) and is used to knock the other players’ marbles out of the circle.  Most of the time marbles were played “for keeps”- if a player captured a marble in a game, he took it home with him.
  
  • Blow-Out : This game is only for two players, and is one of the oldest marble games known where the goal is to try to win marbles from each other. The first player tosses a marble on a smooth surface. The second player tries to hit the marble by tossing another marble at it. If successful, the second player wins the marble. If not, the first player has a turn to hit the second player's marble.
  
  
  • Ring Taw: The most popular marble game in settle times was called Ring Taw, for four to six players. You can play this game today. Two circles are drawn on the ground. The inner circle is about two feet in diameter. Each player places four to six marbles (nibs) in the inner circle. Then the outer circle, called the "taw," is drawn about seven feet in diameter. The players then crouch outside the large ring (taw), and each player takes a turn flicking a shooter into the circle. The goal is to knock other marbles out of the circle. Each player keeps the marbles he or she knocks out. A player’s turn goes on until he fails to hit a marble or sends his shooter out of the larger circle. The winner is the player with the most marbles.

Team Sports:

• Tug-of-war: Tug-of-war was not really a war, but it was still a pretty tough game! Two teams were formed, and a line was drawn on the ground between them..or the teams positioned themselves on either side of a mud puddle. The teams held on to a thick rope and pulled with all their might. The goal was to pull the other team across the line -- or into the mud. Participants had to have strength, endurance, and very strong arms!


• Shinny: Shinny was a popular boy's game. It was similar to ice hockey but was played in open fields or on empty lots. Each player had a stick and used it to hit a small ball into a goal area. Most children used tree branches for sticks and everything from a ball of yarn to a crushed tin can for a ball. In some places, organized shinny teams hit leather balls with well-made sticks.


• 
  
  Lacrosse: Settlers learned the game of lacrosse from the Native people who played it long before Europeans settled in North America. Lacrosse is still very popular, especially in Canada. A lacrosse stick is long and has a net at one end. It is used to catch and fling the ball into the goal area.


• Football: Football is descended from an older game, played since medieval times that involved many players and sometimes pitted villages or parishes against one another. The object seems to have been to contend for a ball and take it to some arbitrary goal, say, a village hall or church. The goals could be miles apart, sometimes across difficult terrain and rivers.
       These far-flung parts of the game were usually out of the view of spectators. With no rules, no nonsense about fair play, and no referees, trouble was commonplace. Football was organized chaos, and England leveled royal decrees against the game throughout the 1300 and 1400s. The law was ineffective against changing the cultural habits because the statutes had to be rewritten again and again. No wonder Kent, in King Lear, insults Oswald by calling him a "base football player." Sir Thomas Elyot, the humanist educator, thought football was nothing but "beastly fury."
       Football, in some form, has been played in America since the very beginning. In 1736, as part of a festival in Hanover County, the Virginia Gazette announced that prizes were to be awarded for fiddle playing, singing, dancing, jumping, wrestling, horseracing, and "foot-ball play." And in Boston. the sport was given a black eye in 1769, when some lads "playing at football" knocked over a sentry box near Province House "either by design or accident." In Elizabeth City County, Virginia, there was even a Football Quarter and a Football Quarter Creek!


• Baseball: In 1621, Governor William Bradford of Massachusetts orders the citizens of Plymouth to stop playing games on Christmas Dayspecifically mentioning "stoolball" and "pitching the bar."
  In stoolball, a milking stool was used as a target, and a hard leather ball stuffed with feathers or hair was thrown at it. One player threw at the stool while another defended it with a wooden bat. In time, the game evolved into cricket and baseball. It also seems to have spun off a game resembling softball called "rounders," which is still played in England, often by girls.
       By the mid-1800s, baseball became a popular sport in the United States. Professional teams played in cities throughout the country. It was also a favorite pastime for many boys. The rules haven't changed much since the 1800s, but there are a few differences. In the past, the batter was called the striker or a batsman, and he could hit the ball in a variety of ways. Some batsmen hit the ball over their head, whereas others hit the ball on the ground, similar to the way a golf ball is hit. The bat was often homemade — sometimes it was just a big stick! Players did not wear helmets or even baseball gloves!