Backyard / Outside Play

redrose66 / June 24, 2015 / Family/ Just for Fun

Things are very different then it was when I grew up in the late 60’s-80’s when children found the time to have backyard fun looking for new games to play.

       

 “Tag”  with its’ many versions was a popular game when it became repetitious thus was enhanced to “TV Tag” where one person was ‘it’ and the other kiddos had to run and in order not to become ‘it’ themselves they would need to say a TV program, cartoon, or cartoon / TV character prior to being tagged or touched by the person whom was ‘it’ at the time.

We also played “Freeze Tag”. “Mother May I”, “Simon Says”, “Dodge Ball”, “Hot and Cold”, “Follow the Leader”, and “Red Rover” were some other games we played outside in our backyard. “Mother May I” was one of my all-time favorites.

 There was “Red Light, Green Light”, another one of my favorites, where one person was ‘caller’ and they would stand with their backs facing the other players and would say “green light” while the light is green the other players advance forward trying not to get noticed because the ‘caller’ will turn around and call “red light” and all players would have to be at a complete stand still without any notice of movement or they would have to go back to the start line while the others remained. Then the process would continue until a player is able to touch the caller without being seen by caller making that player the new ‘caller’.These games I played as a child I taught my children and my nieces and nephews in my yard when they were growing up.

                

 We played in the water with the water sprinkler and / or water hose, which was something we did quite often in the summertime  Sometimes we would get my mom’s dish liquid soap and pour it all over the driveway and get the water hose and make our own current day “Slip and Slide”.  

        

We played with sidewalk chalk making games like “Hopscotch” and geometrical shapes and seeing who could draw the best faces and animals.   We played “Hide and Seek’ and “Ghost and Goblins” where the person whom was ‘it’ had to wear a blindfold. We played “Leap Frog” and “Duck, Duck, Goose”. We “Hula-Hooped” (of course I was never very good at that game).  

         

We played “Jacks”, “Chinese Jacks”, “Limbo”, “Jump Rope”, and “Chinese Jump Rope”.

 Climbing trees searching for locust’s skin shells and locusts was a current event as well as catching lizards and putting numbers on their backs with magic markers then letting them go and hunting for them another day. It was like “Hide and Seek” or “Seek and Find” on the move.  

We played gymnastics in the yard with our next door neighbor such as cartwheels, back bends, we did this little gymnastic-like event we called the ‘chick-a-rellie’ that our friend and neighbor introduced to us where we get on our knees, place our thumbs under our arms (making the appearance of a chicken wing), lifting our chins up slightly to the side, and rolling our bodies forward, making a 360 degree rolling flip. (CAUTION : I DO NOT RECOMMEND TRYING THIS IT CAN BE DANGEROUS! )This was a very difficult task and dangerous. We also would do back flips, somersaults, and air flips.  

We used to play this game called “Indian Leg Wrestling” where the opponents lying side-by-side on their backs in opposite directions with their arms/elbows wrapped around their opponents’ arm while touching hips (ones left hip touching the other’s right hip), and having the outside leg bent the inside leg is to be lifted upon the counting of 1-2-3 with the opponents inside touching leg simultaneously, and immediately upon the count  of ‘3’ then both participants quickly interlock legs while trying to flip their opponent. This I did rather well considering I was a only a peewee back then. Either way it was fun to be flipped by the older ones.

   

 We had this large spool that we came across that the highway electrical people must have left behind so we decided to utilize it in our fun filled days. We would get on top of it on our bellies and place our fingers in a crack in between the horizontally placed boards on the ever so large spindle and while we hung on tightly, the other kiddos would reel it around rolling us all over the yard until we lost grip and fell to the ground. Yes we did 360 degree turns and still held on till we dropped.

          

 My parent’s had bought a volleyball and badminton sets and we would frequently set them up in the backyard.    We also had a “Croquet Game” that we seldom played but nevertheless we played it on special occasions as we did with the “Horseshoe Game”.

          

 Every now and then we would set up a tent in the backyard and go camping with our lamps and flashlights.  Nighttime was fun when we were allowed on those rare occasions when we would catch lighting bugs, listen to crickets, and chase frog’s n toads around the yard.

 And nighttime was fun to play “Ghost and Goblins” because the yard was not just huge, but it was dark and scary especially with a sheet and a blinder covering the eyes. I hated to be ‘it’ but always managed to be elected, (I think I was framed). .

        

      

 There was the occasional “Bobbin for Apples”, “Limbo”, “Spin the Bottle”, “Tether-ball”, “Basketball” (‘horse’), “Frisbee”. “Flag Football” (Okay, I personally didn’t like that one because I was very small and always wound up in pain).  

                                                                                   

 We were a creative bunch I have to say. We went as far as making the yard into an Olympic-like training course field with tires, ladders, limbo, “Tug of War”, we even utilized the swing set for its’ monkey bars, slide, & swing, long jump, chin-ups, and weight lifting (for the older ones).

 Backyard / outside play can be as fun as you make of it or you can stay inside and be a couch potato doing nothing physical only clouding your mind with movies and games.

The option is yours and yours alone.  But for me when I grew up, we played outside a lot and I encouraged my children to play outside when I raised them, even if I myself went outside and played with them to show them the ropes on how much fun backyard / outside play can actually be!

 I hope I gave you some ideas and encouraged some of you to plan outdoor activities with your children to keep them physically active. Let me hear from you! Tell me some fun things you did as your backyard / outside play!

Copyright © 2015 by Josephine Rojas. All rights reserved.