Bored? Try one of these

“Mom, I’m bored.” My mom says she wishes she had a nickel for every time one (or all of us) appeared at her bedroom door with this complaint, especially during late summer. Even though we couldn’t wait to get out of school for summer vacation, it wasn’t long before the doldrums seemed to set in.

My mom usually answered me with “So, go clean your room,” and very soon after she said this, I found something fun and engaging to do.

Much of the time, the kids in the neighborhood busied ourselves with building forts and raging war on each other, but other times, if we had enough kids, we played games on someone’s front lawn.

Outdoor “lawn” games, many passed down to us from parents and grandparents, had a certain beauty in their simplicity. You didn’t need a lot of kids to play; you didn’t need a court, diamond or special facility in which to play it; and you didn’t need any equipment, not even a ball.

You could play with kids of all ages. Tag, and all the variations of it, was the most popular and the easiest, next to Hide and Seek to teach little kids. The premise was simple: Someone was “it” and you had to tag someone else to be “it.” Hide and Seek involved counting to 10 or 20 or backwards from one of those numbers while everyone else hid. With little kids we had to pretend at least for awhile not to see them even though they were hiding behind a skinny tree or only partially covered by a sweater.

For more games, including Kick the Can, King of the Hill and Ghost in the Graveyard, check out the Games Kids Play site. They have a great site full of all sorts of games.

—Betty Boom

Betty's list of popular lawn games*

Crack the Whip
This one for us usually resulted in at least one scraped knee, but it was fun! You should have at least six people or more to get your momentum going. Everyone joins hands in a line. The leader of the line can hold on with one hand or with both hands to the person behind him or her. The last person is known as the “caboose” and is the one most likely to fly off. He or she, too, can hold on to the person in front of them with both hands.

The object is simple, see how long you can hold on before you fly off. The leader tries to whip around as fast and as twisty as he or she can and eventually send the caboose and anyone else near the end of the line flying.

Red Rover
It helps to have an even number of kids to play this game and, again, the more kids the better. This one was popular on the playground where there were lots of participants but you could play with as little as six or eight (a short game though).

Divide the players into two equal sized teams. Each team joins hands, and the two teams face each other. One team starts and one person on that team (either a team leader or take turns in the order you are lined up) begins by calling over a person from the opposing team. They call “Red Rover, Red Rover, let “soinso” over. The person whose name is called runs over to the other line and tries to break through their joined hands.

If the person succeeds, he or she can take a person from that team and add him or her to their team (in our version we took the person who did the calling). Then it is the second team’s turn to call over someone. If the person does not break through, he or she must join the opposing team’s line and the first team continues to call over people. This goes on until one team has all the players and they “win.”

Statues
Although we’ve heard about many very different descriptions of this game, the one I grew up with was the most simple. Players ran, jumped, danced around on the lawn or we would push or swing each other around until the leader yelled “stop,” “freeze” or “statues.” Everyone would stop exactly as they were. The first person to move was “out” and sometimes he or she would become the caller. The group would move around again until someone yelled “stop.” Again, the first person to move would be out. This went on until only one person was left, the “winner.”

Mother (or Captain) May I?
Someone was chosen as the mother or the captain and stood on one end of the lawn with his or her back toward the other players. The rest of the players stood on the other end of the lawn in a line. The mother or captain would call out a person’s name and say “You may take X number of baby (or giant) steps,” and the chosen player had to ask “Mother (or Captain) may I?” The mother could say “yes” or “no” but if the player forgot to ask he or she went back to the starting line. The first person to advance far enough to tag the mother would win (or become the next mother or captain).

* Now that we’re adults and a few of these game ideas scare us a bit…we want to state here that we take absolutely no responsibility for injuries caused by begin flung across a lawn or any mishap that might occur during the playing of these games.

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