Children's outdoor game provide hours of entertainment while helping to develop skills that they will use all during their lifetimes. While education and learning from books is important, learning through doing, expressing and interacting makes a lasting impression and helps children face real challenges in their lives.
Hide and Seek and it's variations are no exception to this. It teaches problem solving, spacial recognition and helps children keep their bodies and minds active.
Hide 'N' Seek
A place or object is chosen to be the "base", this is where players will run to and when a player is touching base, he is considered "safe" and cannot be tagged.
One player is chosen to be "it". This is usually chosen by all of the children shouting, "Not it" at the same time. The last player to shout "Not it" is it. This player will hide his eyes and count out loud enough for all to hear, up to 20 or 50 or 100 or any other number. This number is based on the size of the play area, number of children playing and their skill level.
As soon as the "it" player begins to count, the rest of the players run and hide. When the "it" player is done counting, she yells, "Ready or not, here I come!" and begins to look around to find the other players.
While she is looking for the other players they can stay in their hiding places and try not to be found or the can try to sneak back to base. If they reach base, they yell, "Free!" One at a time, as players are found, the finder calls out, "I found (player's name and the location where they were found)." At this point, the rest of the players are free to come out of their hiding places. Optionally, the game can be played that everyone must be found or the finder must yell that he gives up if he cannot find one or more players. Another option can be to have the players, as they are found, jump up and try to make it to base and if they are not tagged before they reach it, they are safe, turning the play back to the "it" person to find the next person until someone is tagged. The first person to be tagged or found is "it" for the next round.
Sardine Variation of Hide and Seek
In this variation, one person hides, and all the other players seek. If a player finds the one who is hiding, they hide with them. Pretty soon, everyone has disappeared! The last player left seeking gets to be the one to hide next time.
Ghost in the Graveyard Variation of Hide and Seek
Best played at night! One person is the "ghost", and hides. All the other players seek. When a player finds the one who is hiding, they yell, "Ghost in the graveyard!" at which point the "ghost" jumps up and tries to tag the other players. When a player is tagged, they become a "ghost" and try to tag other players, too until all the players are caught. The last player tagged gets to be the "ghost" in the next round.
There are many other outdoor childrens games and the Old Fashioned Outdoor Games have stood the test of time with children and adults.
Robin Lewis - A Graphic Designer by day, artist, writer, gardener and researcher by night, Robin "Bodecoa" is eclectic, artistic and on an endless ...
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