Children in colonial times were often expected to work nearly as hard as adults in order to keep a household and farmland running successfully. They also had schoolwork to do as well. However, they still found time for fun, toys, and games, just like children in today’s societies. Most toys at that time were not made in factories; most were hand-made at home or by local people or in local stores. Toys were simple, and most involved physical exercise and being outside. Houses were smaller in colonial times, and there was not a lot of room to be racing around or playing around indoors.
One game that children liked to play was hoops. Boys and girls used a hoop generally in different ways. Boys ran and pushed their hoops around the schoolyard with sticks. Girls used two sticks to toss and catch their hoops. This could be done between two girls or with one girl tossing the hoop into the air. Often the hoops were those taken from the outside of barrels.
Ninepins was similar to bowling, but it was definitely more difficult, as it was played on uneven ground rather than a smooth bowling alley. Nine upright pins were put on the ground, and the children would take turns trying to knock the pins down with a ball. The pins would be set back up in between children’s turns. Pins were placed three in a row.
Children enjoy races of all kinds, and kids in colonial days were no different. Many times burlap sacks were used as part of the fun. Children would step inside the sacks and hop forward, racing one another until they reached the finish line. This could also be done in relay fashion with one child tagging the other to start off when he or she reached them.
Tag is a very common game for kids of yesterday and today. The concept is very easy really, but the game can be played for hours, or at least until everyone is worn out. One person is declared “it,” and has to chase every other person. If “it” tags another person before he gets back to base, he becomes “it.” The game then starts over. There are many variations of the game, and it has changed through the year. It can also be played over a large geographical area, or it can be confined within a small area to make it more challenging for those trying to avoid “it.”
Quoits was a game they played in colonial times that is similar to horseshoes that is played today. However, in quoits, one places sticks in the yard at various distances from the standing point. Pieces of rope are tied together to form circles. The player tosses these pieces of rope at the sticks, first the one closest, then the next, and so on. Points are given, and the sticks that are farther away are awarded more points. The player with the most quoits points, wins!
Children often liked to play marbles in colonial days. This was most often played with two or three players. Marbles could be made by drying pieces of clay overnight to harden them. The object of a game of marbles is to knock an opponent’s marbles out of a ring or other playing area using one’s own marble. Usually the marble used as the “knocker” is called the shooter. The player shoots this marble into a group of other marbles, careful to avoid his own, and he attempts instead to knock the shooter against the opponent’s marbles to knock them out. The person with his marbles left in the playing area in the end is the winner. Oftentimes a player would be allowed to keep the marbles of the opponents that he knocked out of the playing area.
Hopscotch has its origins in ancient Britain as far back as the Roman Empire. It was first used as a training exercise for the military to improve their footwork. The children, however, saw the soldiers and imitated them, creating their own hopscotch game board, on a smaller scale. This game was passed down through the generations and came to America with the Puritans who settled here. The colonial children loved a good game of hopscotch. It is played by scratching squares into dirt or into a surface of some kind. These squares are numbered often. A marker, usually a small stone, is tossed into the first square for the first turn, the second square for the second turn, and so on. The player then has to hop on one foot through the course, changing feet as she goes. On the way back through, she must bend down and pick up the stone. The game can be played with more than one player, as a competition, with the first child completing the whole board as a winner. Hopscotch, however, can be just as much fun played alone.
Leapfrog was one of the simplest games that colonial children could play, because it needed no toys, no tools, and no accessories at all. The children only needed each other to play. One child would kneel down, and the other would leap over his back like a frog and kneel down in a huddled position, just like the first, leaving some room between the two of them. Another child would then leap over the first child, then the second, and then land into a huddled position just as the other two. This could continue for as many children as there were. Then the first child could leap over each of the children who leaped over him. The second child would leap over all the children and so on. This could go on as long as the children wished to play.
A game that many adults in colonial times played as well as the children was Blind Man’s Bluff. In this game, one person would be blindfolded and would step into the middle of a circle while all the other players stood around him. The person who is “it” claps his hands three times. One person would enter the circle. The blindfolded person has one guess as to who the person is. If he is right, the person must be “it” and wear the blindfold next. If he is wrong, he must try to grab the person and guess again. If he does not guess the person on the second guess, he continues to be “it” as the player joins the circle.
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