I Said, "Go Outside and Play!" Quiz

Answer: Hide and seek

Hide and Seek is a great game for a group of three or more children. The more children the better! One child is "It" and chooses a "home base" where they must run to and touch, in order to declare the other children as found. The "It" child must close their eyes and count to a hundred (or whichever number they decide on that could be less than a hundred).

While "It" counts, the other children hide. They can hide on the side of a garage, or behind a bush, as long as the places are safe. Once "It" finishes counting, they must go and find the hiding children.

When "It" finds one, the race is on to home base. If "It" reaches the spot first, "It" must say, "One, two, three on (Ann, for example)", then that child is out. If the child reaches the spot before "It" reaches home base then that child is safe.

The first child out becomes the "It" child, once all the hiding children have been caught or have reached home base safely.

Answer: Kick the Can

Kick the Can is played very similar to hide and seek. Home base is an empty tin can, like a soup can, placed in the middle of the yard. An area, like the front steps, is designated as the jail where captured children must wait. If a child who has been spotted can make it to the can and kick it before the "It" child can reach the can, that child is free and can hide again. If the "It" child reaches the can first, he declares the name of the captured child and puts them in "jail". If a player is not spotted by the "It" child, and reaches the can, he can kick it and this will free all of the children who were captured and are in jail. Once all of the children are captured and placed in jail, the first one who was caught becomes "It".

Answer: Shadow tag

Shadow tag is a fun game. Typically, one child is "It" and must step on the shadow of another child in order to tag them. Once tagged, that child then becomes "It".

Answer: Jacks

Jacks is a great classic game. Sitting on the driveway, sidewalk or floor, or standing at a table, the player must gently toss the ten jacks onto the playing surface. They then must toss the ball up into the air with their normal throwing hand. While the ball is in the air they must pick up one jack before the hits the ground. (In some games, one bounce is allowed).

The jacks must be picked up with the same throwing hand and the ball then must be caught as well. Once all ten jacks have been picked up, then it is repeated picking up two at a time, and then three etc. until one has to pick up all ten in one hand full. If the player misses picking up the right number of jacks in a turn, or the ball hits the ground (or bounces twice) they are out and the next person takes their turn.

The players' turns alternate as players miss jacks or the ball. The first one to be able to pick up all ten jacks in one toss wins.

Answer: Elastics

This game is great and active. Instead of a skipping rope, many large and strong elastics are strung together to make a very large loop (one very long elastic can be tied together too). The "enders" stretch the elastic into a rectangle shape by standing with their feet slightly apart.

The elastic should be at ankle height when the first round of the game begins. The jumper must do a series of actions made up of hops, jumps and stretching the elastic with their feet, or standing on the elastic. In one of the actions the player must lift the farther strand of the elastic over the nearer strand with the pointed toe of her right foot, whilst hopping on her left foot, and passes it across the other strand and back again a few times.

The player then must jump into the frame, facing the long way, jump with her feet apart and land with feet either side of the frame.

The player then must jump with feet inside, together again and then jump so that the feet land on the two strands of elastic, bringing them inside together again, and so on, sometimes with the strands crossed. Once all of the moves have been performed without a mistake, the elastic is raised to calf height; then it is raised to knees, thighs, and finally waist height after the completion of each phase. Different rhymes or songs can be chanted while playing.

Other names for this game are Elastics and also Chinese Jump Rope.

Answer: Hopscotch

To play hopscotch a game grid has to be drawn, with chalk, on the driveway or on a sidewalk. The grid is made up of numbered squares starting with #1. The squares make a long row, with the occasional two squares drawn side by side. There can be as many numbered squares as desired.

The first player starts by tossing their rock onto square #1. They must then hop over the square with their rock on it and hop on one foot unless there is a double square, side by side area, in their hopscotch pattern.

In this case the player uses both feet (one foot on each square) and returns to one foot if the next square is a single square. The player must do this all the way to the end of the pattern. The player must then turn around and come back, stopping on square 2, balance on one foot, pick up their rock in square #1 and hop over Square 1 to the start.

They continue doing this but toss their rock into the next number sequence, and so on. If the player tosses their rock and misses the correct square that they are supposed to toss their rock into, they will then lose their turn.

This game can be played with any number of people, but only one person can go at a time.

Answer: Spud

For this game all of the children have a number based on the amount of children playing. They all stand in a circle with "It" standing in the middle with a beach ball. The child who is "It" has to toss a beach ball straight up while the other children run away from the circle. "It" has to call out the number of one of the other children as "It" is tossing the ball upward.

The child with that number has to return and catch the ball or chase the ball if it's bouncing around. They then must yell out "SPUD" which means everyone else has to freeze and not move.

The child who had to get the ball then tries to hit the lower legs of any of the other players. If they succeed that child is "It" for the next round. If they miss, the child who tossed the ball is then "It".

Answer: Sardines

Sardines is a backward type of hide and seek game. All of the children have to close their eyes and count to one hundred, together. The child who is "It" is the only one who must go and hide. Once the counting is finished, the other children have to go and look for "It". If "It" is found, whoever finds "It" has to stay with "It" and hide there. Eventually, all but one of the children will be hiding in the same spot with "It". Once the last child that is searching finds everyone, the game is over.

The last child becomes "It" for the next game.

Answer: Frozen tag

Frozen tag is also known as Freeze Tag. In this game, "It" has to chase and tag the other children. When tagged, the child is "frozen" on the spot, with arms down and feet apart. That child cannot move. If one of the untagged children can crawl between the frozen child's legs, this will free the frozen child, who can then run again. Once all of the children are frozen, the last one caught becomes "It" for the next game.

Answer: Follow the leader

One child is the leader while the rest of the children follow behind forming one long line of children. The leader must walk along making five different actions such as hopping on one foot, spinning in a circle and so on. The children following must do the exact same actions in the same order. If a child doesn't do the exact actions in the right order, they are out. The last child following the leader then becomes the new leader for a new game. It helps to have an adult supervising to select which children are out as that happens.