Playground fads
With the kids currently in the midst of the Pokemon trading card faze and of course Bel making rings and necklaces out of the fad from the states Rainbow Loom, it got me thinking to my own Playground fads and crazes.
At first I thought that I didn't have any but then I remember that we had those clacky things on our bikes - normally from a cereal packet (remember toys in cereal packs and masks to cut out the back they should bring them back). Now my memory is useless and to be honest if the kids weren't 6 and nearly 10 I'd still swear it was baby brain, so luckily for me Oxford Open Learning have listed the 50 years of childhood crazes and so I can give you their name and a picture:
Spokey Dokeys - although I swear they were clacks in our school.
Then my mind went blank for a bit and I remembered that I did have in my early childhood some Weebles and the much loved Weeble tree.
I couldn't think of many more fads though when I was a teen, we all had Doctor marten's Ankle boots and we all had a green bead (or other colour) laced into them and we all thought we were cool. I wore my DM's until my black ones died and somewhere in the house am sure I have a brown pair somewhere (I once had a flatmate in uni who had some groovy purple ones!).
Having looked at the amazing crazes again, it does mention playground games so I thought I'd think back to the ones we played in our school:
Hopscotch image via Flikr
I think we all played hopscotch and the next one but some of the others may be my school only!
British Bulldog was obviously a fave and though the game has now been banned, Bel did say that they played a similar game at school the other day which was similar but less violent!
Off ground touch - where basically someone was It and everyone else had to run around - if you got off the ground you were safe!
A variation of this was Corners - where you were safe when you were in a corner!
Poison - a player was It and held out their hand, all players took a finger each and the It person started saying I went to the shop today and I bought some add random item and then carried on with the story until they said the word Poison. When this happened the other players ran away and tried not to get caught. If you were caught you stood against the wall with your hand on the wall and other players could rescue you by running through your arms/legs
Pacman - we had a netball court painted onto my primary school playground though never any nets and so we played pacman on it. One person would be pacman and try and race around to the safe spot (it was a part of the playground which had different coloured surface following the lines while others were ghosts and tried to catch them!
We also had the skipping ropes out often and used to skip with two people turning the rope and then one or even multiple jumping inside. The only poem I remember from these games were Salt, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper though am sure there were more. My skipping days are now unfortunately over when did it get so hard though I know the kids do some clapping games in school.
What about you, what games and crazes can you remember from your childhood - do any of the above strike a chord or have you your own. Why don't you share them in the comments?
BNM
At first I thought that I didn't have any but then I remember that we had those clacky things on our bikes - normally from a cereal packet (remember toys in cereal packs and masks to cut out the back they should bring them back). Now my memory is useless and to be honest if the kids weren't 6 and nearly 10 I'd still swear it was baby brain, so luckily for me Oxford Open Learning have listed the 50 years of childhood crazes and so I can give you their name and a picture:
Then my mind went blank for a bit and I remembered that I did have in my early childhood some Weebles and the much loved Weeble tree.
I couldn't think of many more fads though when I was a teen, we all had Doctor marten's Ankle boots and we all had a green bead (or other colour) laced into them and we all thought we were cool. I wore my DM's until my black ones died and somewhere in the house am sure I have a brown pair somewhere (I once had a flatmate in uni who had some groovy purple ones!).
Having looked at the amazing crazes again, it does mention playground games so I thought I'd think back to the ones we played in our school:
I think we all played hopscotch and the next one but some of the others may be my school only!
British Bulldog was obviously a fave and though the game has now been banned, Bel did say that they played a similar game at school the other day which was similar but less violent!
Off ground touch - where basically someone was It and everyone else had to run around - if you got off the ground you were safe!
A variation of this was Corners - where you were safe when you were in a corner!
Poison - a player was It and held out their hand, all players took a finger each and the It person started saying I went to the shop today and I bought some add random item and then carried on with the story until they said the word Poison. When this happened the other players ran away and tried not to get caught. If you were caught you stood against the wall with your hand on the wall and other players could rescue you by running through your arms/legs
Pacman - we had a netball court painted onto my primary school playground though never any nets and so we played pacman on it. One person would be pacman and try and race around to the safe spot (it was a part of the playground which had different coloured surface following the lines while others were ghosts and tried to catch them!
We also had the skipping ropes out often and used to skip with two people turning the rope and then one or even multiple jumping inside. The only poem I remember from these games were Salt, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper though am sure there were more. My skipping days are now unfortunately over when did it get so hard though I know the kids do some clapping games in school.
What about you, what games and crazes can you remember from your childhood - do any of the above strike a chord or have you your own. Why don't you share them in the comments?
BNM