Okay - let's get a little more "creative" with the games you played as a kid..

[C.Ann]

This time around, no board games; no video stuff; no action figures or dolls; no little cars and trucks; etc..

I want to hear about games where you had to use your imagination and use "nothing" other than objects like cans; cardboard boxes; chalk; a rope; etc..

My best friend and I had a special place that we used to go to in the woods down past my grandma's house.. Once you were "in" the woods, there was a large clearing with large rocks that looked a lot like the "Old West".. We would go out there every chance we got and play "Bonanza" on our own little "Ponderosa".. She was always "Adam" and I was always "Little Joe".. We would gallop around on our imaginary horses, "shoot" the Indians and the "bad guys" with our "guns" (fingers), and every day one of us would get "shot" and the other would have to come to the rescue..

Gosh.. If I close my eyes right now I can see that spot as plain as day.. I wonder if it still looks the same?

Ahhhh - those were the "good old days"...

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

We also used to run like a herd of horses when we were little girls. I loved horses, the Misty books were my favorites. On a trip to the NE we drove on the island of Assateague and saw the wild ponies!

At recess we used to play "boys chase the girls" or vice versa. Funny thing, no one ever caught anyone, so I don't remember what was supposed to happen if we did!

We (boys and girls) played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and yes, oh yes, we carried GUNS! AND WE SHOT AT EACH OTHER!! And they were LOADED-with CAPS!!! Can you imagine that?

 

[C.Ann]

We (boys and girls) played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and yes, oh yes, we carried GUNS! AND WE SHOT AT EACH OTHER!! And they were LOADED-with CAPS!!! Can you imagine that?

We didn't have any, but if we did, you can bet we would have used them..

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

We didn't have any, but if we did, you can bet we would have used them..

I wasn't a "play house nice" kind of girl, I liked to run wild like the boys.

And if we didn't have the guns around, we would just take rocks and tap them on the caps on the cement until they exploded or scratch them and get our fingertips burned...happy times..

 

[C.Ann]

I wasn't a "play house nice" kind of girl, I liked to run wild like the boys.

And if we didn't have the guns around, we would just take rocks and tap them on the caps on the cement until they exploded or scratch them and get our fingertips burned...happy times..

I wasn't a "girlie - girl" either.. My mom would put me in a dress for church or Easter and I would run right upstairs and put a pair of pants on underneath it.. She swore that I was going to wear "white satin pants" for my wedding.. I made an "exception" for that - as well as my 2nd marriage - and my DD's wedding.. Other than those 3 times, this body hasn't seen a dress since 1995..

 

[Connieh]

You are on a roll tonight, love it!

We played war, of course the boys were the soldiers and the girls were the nurses.

Statue maker was fun. Spin someone around and they had to pretend to be something or someone dependant on the position they ended up in. Someone else was the buyer. It was great fun.

Then there was the time we lit the end of the broom on fire and marched around the house singing....Oh lee oh (from the Wizard of Oz). We thought it was fun at the time but the penalty wasn't worth it.

 

[C.Ann]

Then there was the time we lit the end of the broom on fire and marched around the house singing....Oh lee oh (from the Wizard of Oz). We thought it was fun at the time but the penalty wasn't worth it.

Oh my!!

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

I liked fire when I was a kid, too. Maybe that's why I am exceptionally vigilant with my boys. I refuse to show them how to light the stove and the butane ligher, too.

My DH used to light his army men on fire and watch them drip melted plastic.....in the basement. He walked past his dad one day after one of these sessions, and his dad yelled at him "YOU'VE BEEN PLAYING WITH FIRE, HAVEN'T YOU?!!!" I am certain there was some sort of corporal punishment after that. It took DH quite awhile to figure out that his dad wasn't psychic, he could smell the smoke on him...

 

[bananda]

we used to play "survivor" on the play equipment at the park. that was back when it was a new show and we all loved it.

we also used to play this game where me and my friends were 16 and all lived together. our house was the "bendy tree" in the playground at school. i dont know why, but 16 was a really cool age. lol.

there was also a tree at school that had like a seat on it - it was actually part of the tree. we would pretend that was a throne and we were princesses.

another game we played was "eggs bacon chips or cheese." it was one of my favourite games.

when we were inside because of rain or whatever, we would play "heads down, thumbs up."

and then there were the clapping games. the most popular one was "my boyfriend gave me an apple"

 

[IDoDis]

#1 -- We made a TV news studio by cutting a large round hole on two opposite sides of cardboard boxes. Ran some metal tubing through it (like the bendy tube behind a dryer), painted the box and the words "Channel 4" on both sides. Tied string to fat kindergarten pencils for microphones, used flashlights for the lighting, and wa-laa! We had our own TV newsroom in our basement where we used to pretend film news stories

#2 -- One summer day my mom brought home a couple hundred library pockets from work (the thing that used to hold the library book check-out card). My brother, sister, and I turned our entire book collection into the "Children's Library." We made check-out cards for each book and had a time where the neighborhood kids would come over and check-out our books. We used to stamp their cards and we had storytime once a week. I still have one of those books (a favorite) that has "Children's Library" written on the inside cover.

#3 -- My brother, sister, and I along with another family of four kids set up a carnival in the backyard at the housing project we lived in. We made up all kinds of games and gave away candy for prizes. We put up signs and posted them all over the projects. Our carnival was a HUGE success! I remember sitting at the kitchen table together afterward counting all of our money. It was all change -- lots of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. I don't remember how much we made, but it was a pretty good sum for a few kids who had a dream and made it happen.

#4 -- We used to turn the long lawn chairs over on their sides and block off walls and rooms to make a house. We'd cover all of the chairs with blankets and then crawl through the rooms and play house.

 

[IloveWINNIEthePOOH]

My brother and I always used the kitchen utensils to play "surgery"

When we had a boat, we'd play "apartment" in it when it was parked in the garage...one had the front, one had the back...and we'd visit each other's apartment.

wow..what a walk down memory lane

 

[Amy&Dan]

I had one friend who used to love to play beauty shop. I remember one time using a jar of Dippity Doo on her little brother along with about 500 bobby pins. This poor kid had this thick, curly hair. Every time I see him (he's around 40 now and a doctor) I wonder if he remembers all the times Laura and I played beauty shop with his head!

Another friend and I played "college" a lot. Which meant we would blast my sister's old 45's on my record player and dance around my room for hours in our version of a dorm party!

Last but not least I remember playing Little House on the Praire. I would make my poor beagle Snoopy be "Jack" and my friend and I would take turns being Mary and Laura. I remember my aunt even got me a sunbonnet I was so into the books and playing out the stories in them!

 

[NotUrsula]

There was acrobat -- we lived in a military neighborhood and one of the houses had a pipe drilled into the trunks of two trees about 8 feet off the ground; a previous owner had put it there to do chinups, and it moved higher as the trees grew. Our game involved lumberjack-rolling an old 50 gallon drum down the hill toward it and jumping up to swing on the pipe as the barrel rolled beneath it. One friend missed and broke his arm in three places.

We used to practice bolo-throwing on dummies we made out of old clothes and hung on the line. The bolos were home-made, too, of course.
(For some reason the social studies topic in our school in 5th grade was Latin American History; a full year of it. We thought gauchos sounded cool.)

Our favorite game of all, however, required a hurricane to play. It was VERY special because you could only do it in the first day or two right after a storm had passed, when the drainage canals were still full of 8 feet of floodwater. You "borrowed" a sheet or two of the plywood that your Dad had just removed from the windows, and you went surfing.
The object was to surf clear across the canal on the plywood, from one bank to the other. It was a tricky thing, as the water had to be just the right depth. You laid down the plywood so that it floated on a few inches of water on one bank, then took a running start and jumped on it at just the right angle to send it all the way across without sinking. The snakes, alligators and storm debris in the water added to the challenge. (We used to catch hell if our parents caught us at this, as you might expect. However, they were mostly too busy checking the damage and trying to cook a whole bunch of food in a hurry to care too much about what we were up to at that moment.)

 

[JohnsPrincess]

I used to always play this one thing with my friends...but I can NOT remember what we called it. It was basically Hide & Seek - but it was outside at night. No flashlights. LOL So fun and freaky!

 

[LaraK]

Red Rover
Smush the Lemon (on the slide)
Murder Ball

We were bloodthirsty.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Sardines - kind of a reverse hide and seek game. One person hid, and everyone else counted. When you found the person, you hid with him/her, until everyone was all squised in the hiding place.

Giants, Elves, and Wizards - This was like Rock, Scissors, Paper on a grand scale. Two teams decided in secret what to be. You met at the middle line, acted out what you had decided, and one team had to chase the other back to their home base. (Giants chased Elves, Elves chased Wizards, and Wizards chased Giants, I think.) Anyone caught was then on the other team.

Ghost in the Graveyard - played at night, of course. It was a bit like Sardines in that one person hid while the others counted, but the first to find him/her yelled "Ghost in the graveyard!" and everyone had to run back to base, while "It" came out of hiding and tried to catch them.

and of course building forts out of chairs and blankets, every Saturday morning, to watch cartoons from.

 

[MIGrandma]

I remember in the fall, when the leaves had fallen from the trees, we would rake them up into house outlines. We would make leaf "lines" to make the rooms and would have a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom and we would "play house" in our "leaf houses."

Ah, what a memory.