COLONIAL GAMES and FUN!

By Kristen Pavlounis 7A1 ID4

Introduction• Children would play games to help them with

skills- running, jumping, throwing, and solving problems.

• Children would make up games, songs, riddles, and contests to make chores and work fun.

• Games were all homemade and made from things that they already had.

• Some games that children in colonial times played are still popular today.

GamesBOYS’ GAMES

• Boys’ games would usually focus on skills like throwing (making hunting easier) and aim.

• Boys liked to play games with balls. In colonial times, balls were leather bags filled with feathers.

• Boys also liked to fly kites, shoot marbles, and spin tops.

GIRLS’ GAMES

• Girls mostly played with dolls that they made themselves. Dolls would be made with rags and cornhusks.

• Girls also would sew samplers.

Games

• There were also many games that both boys and girls liked to play.

• One of the most popular and favorite games of the colonial children was hoops.

• Colonial children also played hop scotch (they called it scotch-hopper), leap frog, tag, hide and seek, quoits, and nine pins (kind of like bowling). Another popular game was Blindman’s Bluff.

• Nine Man Morris was a board game that colonial children played.

• They played with Bilbo catchers(cup and ball), whirligigs, tops, Jacobs ladders, dice, and marbles.

Rolling Hoops• Children loved playing with hoops.• Sometimes the children would race each other

to see who can get to the finish. They would use the sticks to push the hoop.

• Boys liked to run and push their hoops.• Girls liked to try to throw and catch their

hoops with 2 sticks.

Nine Man Morris• Nine Man Morris was a popular board game in the colonies.

Most of the time, the game was played in the dirt with rocks and acorns as markers. The game is played with 2 players who each have 9 markers.

HOW TO PLAY1. Take turns putting markers at points where lines cross. Try to

get 3 in a row while doing this.2. Now start moving your pieces along those lines. Again, try to

get 3 markers in a row so you can take your opponents’ pieces.3. You win the game once your opponent has only 2 markers left.

You can also win when you have surrounded your opponents’ pieces.

Bilbo Catcher(Ball and Cup)

• This toy has remained popular throughout American history.

• OBJECTIVE- In the simple version, you toss ball and try to get it in the cup attached to a stick. In the harder version, the ball can be caught on the bottom tip of the stick as well.

(it seems really easy, but its really not!-at least for me…)

Whirligig(Buzzer)

• Whirligig toys were played in Europe and the English colonies in the colonial times. They were also called buzzers because of the loud noise they make at full speed.

Colonial RiddlesRIDDLES

• What can be seen falling down, but never crying?

• What kind of room is not in a house?

• What has 3 feet but cannot walk?

• What flies up, but is always down?

• When is a boy most like a bear?

• What has a tongue but cannot talk?

ANSWERS• Rain• Mushroom

• Yardstick

• Goose feathers• When he is barefoot• A shoe

SONGS

• “Ring Around a Rosy”• “London Bridge is Falling Down”• “Here We Go Around the Mulberry Bush”

SOURCES• http://www.ssdsbergen.org/Colonial/games.htm• http://www.ehow.com/about_4569303_entertainment-pennsyl

vania-during-colonial-times• http://www.historylives.com/toysandgames.htm• http://www.pencaderheritage.org/main/teachtool/games.pdf• http://parentchildeducation.com/2010/12/02/colonial-america-

riddles/• Fun and Games in Colonial America By: Mark Thomas• Children in Colonial America By: James Marten• Colonial Life • By: Brendan January• Growing Up in the New World• By: Brandon Marie Miller