Games we used to Play

Remember the good old days when we used to spend so many daylight hours outside playing with friends. Most games we played were inexpensive and all we needed were a few friends and we will have hours of fun. This is remembering the good times we had as kids and children today are missing out so much on the fun they get outdoors, climbing trees and plucking fruits to eat off the trees. We found fun in everything, collecting stones, catching spiders and keeping them in matchboxes and stringing flowers to make garland. We had such a wild imagination then and everything was free. This poem is about some of the games we used to play besides the board games like Ludo, Snake and Ladder, Monopoly etc. If you recollect any other games, please do add a comment. How I hope these games will make a comeback as it's such a good way of bonding among families and friends and neighbours.

Games Children Played

As I look back to a time long ago

Long before computers and tv shows

There were simple games children used to play

Hours were spent outdoor throughout the day

There were seven stones, hop scotch and skipping ropes

Coconut fronds were used to slide down slopes

What fun we had when we played hide and seek

When others hide, one person counted and he musn’t peek

Skipping to ropes, there were so many rhymes

We’d skip and sing while counting to time

These skipping ropes were strung from rubber bands

The richer children used double strands

Hopscotch would be played before school began

Squares and circles would be drawn on the sand

Some kind of token had to be thrown

A string of beads, a bunch of shells or any old stone

With seven stones, we’d sit on the floor

A game you can play with one person or more

You toss one stone and pick up another

You would have lost if you dropped either

So many more I can’t recall

But any of these were more fun than the Mall

I think children had more fun in the good old days

The games were all free, there was nothing to pay.

~ Liz Sammy-Chin ~