Teach all children to play games without batteries! They will always remember the fun!
Steps:
- Kick the Can: In Kick the Can, one person was IT and had to hide their eyes and count while everyone hid. We liked to play this after dark, too. The difference from hide and seek was that you could change places and, if you managed to get back and kick the can, IT had to come back and set it up before they could 'catch' anyone. Each person that was caught was then to help IT catch the others. Always, kicking the can stopped the game until it was erected again.
- Annie Over: We threw a ball over the house hollering "Annie Over." The object was to catch the ball and without it touching the ground. You never knew where it was coming over only that it was coming over when the call of "Annie Over" came.
- Red Rover: Red Rover took a lot of kids, the more the better. One side would yell, 'Red Rover, Red Rover send (someone's name on the other side) right over. The person named would run as hard as they could and try to break through the locked hands of the other side. If they did not, they were captured and had to stay on the other team. If they broke the line, they got to pick someone to take back to their team.
- One-Eyed Cat: We also used to play 'one eyed cat'. That was a ball game. You could play with teams or just individuals. You hid the ball as far as you could and then held the bat out and the person that retrieved the ball had to try to throw the ball through the "V" formed by your arm and the bat. If they did it was their turn to bat. If not, you continued until someone threw the ball through.
- I Spy: Then there was 'I Spy'. One person or team would describe an object in the room and say 'I spy . . . ' giving as vague a description as you could to make it hard. Guesses were then made and clues were given by telling the guesser if they were hot or cold.
I'm sure there are lots more that I have forgotten, but these are the ones that we played the most. Also we had indoor games like hide the thimble. That is pretty self explanatory. I don't remember having too many toys to play with, but I also don't remember ever being bored.
