Playground games & Kiddy Rhymes

Jellybaby1 · 03-10-2012 1:39pm

When I taught my tots 'eeny meeny miney mo' I changed it to 'catch a little boy/girl by the toe'. It worked very well and one day they heard someone say the original and they were surprised that that person had got it so 'wrong'!

"All in, all in, who has the ball?' Yep, remember playing that one. This all sounds very familiar, we must have been chatting about this in another thread?

looksee · 03-10-2012 1:44pm

Yes we were, I will hunt for it and combine them

Update - have combined the two, I think this is the one we were thinking of.

policarp · 08-10-2012 2:55am

Ra ra ree
Kick him on the knee
Ra ra rollocks
Kick him on the other knee.

As kids, we all thought this was kind of risque and daring. It was sung out in a kind of a chant.

EZ24GET · 08-10-2012 6:33pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

When I taught my tots 'eeny meeny miney mo' I changed it to 'catch a little boy/girl by the toe'. It worked very well and one day they heard someone say the original and they were surprised that that person had got it so 'wrong'!

"All in, all in, who has the ball?' Yep, remember playing that one. This all sounds very familiar, we must have been chatting about this in another thread?

We were taught to say tiger. Didn't really know there was a different version until we were introduced to it by kids at school. We were horrified but also couldn't really understand why it would have ever been used. Used one potato, two potato for choosing too.

JuliusCaesar · 08-10-2012 7:13pm

Skipping song:

vote vote vote for deValera
In comes (next girl) at the door-eye-oh

the next girl jumped in, the girl skipping jumped out...can't remember the rest of it.

Dev was ancient and seemed to have been the President forever.

There were a lot of clapping games, and complicated throwing tennis balls against a wall games, which involved rhymes too - and French skipping which was made with LOTS of elastic bands. And hopscotch, which we also called skipping, was played with a shoe polish tin filled with earth to weigh it down.

EZ24GET · 08-10-2012 10:15pm

We jumped to
"Teddy bear Teddy bear
Turn around
Teddy bear Teddy bear
touch the ground
Teddy bear Teddy bear
go upstairs
Teddy bear Teddy bear
Say your prayers"
as we pantomimed the events. At the last you closed your eyes, folded your hands under your tilted head. then skipped out.

Alice1 · 09-10-2012 11:02pm

Oh yes, we used to play "Giant Steps" too - there were a lot us and it was great fun.
We also used to play something called "Working Men" Needed minimum of three childer. Two of the childer would plan a job (eg, painting, knitting, eating etc) and had to mime it to the other one. The other one had to guess - charades of a sort I suppose... though if the person couldn't guess he/ she could suddenly shout "the cow is lowing" and chase the "working men" away.

We used to count someone "out" by chanting

"See Sally Saucer, sitting in the water,
Rise up Sally, wash your tears away.
Turn to the east turn the west.
Turn the one that you love best". (The one who was loved best, was out)

Alice1 · 09-10-2012 11:05pm

EZ24GET wrote: »

I can only remember parts of this...Alice has legs ike spaghetti and a neck like a giraffey affey affey affe
Alice climbed into the bathtub, pulled out theplug and then- Oh! My Goodness ! Oh! My Soul! There goes Alice down the hole..." Seemed like there were hand gestures that went along with it, can't quite remember them.

*Ali glares @ EZ, and does the thinned lips look*

EZ24GET · 09-10-2012 11:47pm

Alice1 wrote: »

*Ali glares @ EZ, and does the thinned lips look*

oops

sorry about that

Rubecula · 10-10-2012 7:32am

Why am I laughing at this thread now :pac:

Remember "The big ship sailed on the Alley Alley Oh"?

and "One potato Two Potato. three potato four" for choosing something or somebody.

We used to play a game called "Eelallio" (Or however it was spelled) Now I can't remember what it was all about, a bit like hide and seek I think. And if you had to go in for your dinner the way to tell your mates was to call them all back by "ALL IN ALL IN, THE CAPTAIN's CALLING" at the top of your lungs.

EZ24GET · 10-10-2012 3:49pm

We had to say "ally ally ox in free" when we gave up on a game. What an ox had to do with anything i don't know. We Must have taken it from something else and garbled the words.

looksee · 10-10-2012 5:42pm

We used to say croggies when we wanted to take a break from a game - the croggies was a corruption of cross keys - you had to cross your fingers as well - apparently all a garbled reference to the Papal flag. In Leicester it was Pax, also with crossed fingers.

There is an interesting discussion about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truce_term
I wonder has any research been done on equivalent Irish terms. With population movement it would be difficult to get a clear picture now I think.

JuliusCaesar · 10-10-2012 6:04pm

can't remember the beginning of the rhyme:

.......
melodion legs
umberella feet
went to the pictures
couldn't get a seat
when the picture started
......farted

Liar, liar, your pants are on fi-re

OldGoat · 10-10-2012 8:55pm

Skinny-malinks, melodion legs...

Jellybaby1 · 11-10-2012 12:30am

I'm just thinking that some of the sayings I knew were garbled versions of what everyone else knew, but then maybe everyone else's were really garbled versions of what I knew.

I know I have some words wrong. We used to say ' meh-loh-ja legs' for 'melodion legs'. Really daft! Or were we half-deaf?

Rubecula · 11-10-2012 5:34am

OldGoat wrote: »

Skinny-malinks, melodion legs...

Never knew the rhyme to be honest but I do remember my gran and mum using Skinny_malinks as a description of my baby sister. She was so thin she was almost transparent. How times change :cool:

sudzs · 03-11-2012 10:52pm

Lexicographer wrote: »

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

Ohmigod! I've been trying to remember that for ages!

Did you learn it from a Mrs Valentine by any chance??!

poppyvally · 04-11-2012 12:22am

Chinese government, black man's daughter
Tra la la was a very good scholar
The wind blows high...........that's all i remember. Anyone ever heard of it?

Rubecula · 04-11-2012 11:28am

poppyvally wrote: »

Chinese government, black man's daughter
Tra la la was a very good scholar
The wind blows high...........that's all i remember. Anyone ever heard of it?

That's a new one on me. Never heard it before .... sorry I can't help.

Jellybaby1 · 04-11-2012 12:40pm

poppyvally wrote: »

Chinese government, black man's daughter
Tra la la was a very good scholar
The wind blows high...........that's all i remember. Anyone ever heard of it?

That's a weird one. Never heard of it. In which country were you a child at play!

Lexicographer · 06-11-2012 9:46am

Where you going, Bob?
Down the road, Bob.
For what, Bob?
For rhubard.
Can I go, Bob?
No, Bob.
Why, Bob?
Cos you don't like rhubarb!

We used this rhyme as a ball game, two tennis balls against a wall!!! Hours of fun.

Lexicographer · 06-11-2012 9:47am

sudzs wrote: »

Ohmigod! I've been trying to remember that for ages!

Did you learn it from a Mrs Valentine by any chance??!

Not Mrs Valentine, sorry, think it is Pam Ayres originally.

Emily88 · 26-10-2014 2:42pm

anewme wrote: »

Loved Kerbs.

We had a game which we called sticky relivio - which was kind of the same thing that you called ralivo.

Red Rover - Red Rover, Red Rover we call Johnny over.......

There was another game we called it Plaineyio= where the person who was "on" threw a tennis ball backwards over their head and those behind had to scurry to catch it and hide it somewhere on their person. When the ball was suitably hidden, the group sang "plaineyio who has the ball, is he big or his he small, is he fat or is he thin, or is he hit with a rolling pin. The person then quizzed everyone "splits" etc to see if they could guess who had the ball.

Bulldog - Bulldogs charge!!

There was another game "Giant Steps".....Paddy, you take 2 baby steps (someone you did not like)........John, take a train to london.......

Also did the elastics thing - we just called it elastics - "Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, inside outside inside, scales, inside outside, across the sea and back again, make a gun and shoot yourself, outside, across the sea, make a diamond, one, two three!"

Other things I remember playing were "Swingball" and a "Mr. Turtle Pool" here's the add from 1977 - I still remember all the words.

We said Queenieio instead of Plaineyio

And our giant steps/baby steps game was called "Mother May I".

Emily88 · 26-10-2014 2:45pm

OldGoat wrote: »

Skinny-malinks, melodion legs...

My Mam used to say that....Skinny Malink, Melodion legs and Umbrella feet!

(used to describe someone who was tall and skinny with big feet, I think?)

Emily88 · 26-10-2014 2:53pm

the_syco wrote: »

Also, 21 (I think it was called). You count to 21, and everyone hides. You then say where they were hiding (or running towards the pole) whilst one hand was on the central pole. One trick was to just go home without anyone seeing you go, and everyone thinking you were in some awesome place :pac:

We called this Tip the Can, and I know it was called Kick the Can in other areas.

Emily88 · 26-10-2014 3:49pm

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Skipping song:

vote vote vote for deValera
In comes (next girl) at the door-eye-oh

the next girl jumped in, the girl skipping jumped out...can't remember the rest of it.

Dev was ancient and seemed to have been the President forever.

I think it was

Vote vote vote for DeValera,
In comes (next girl) at the door-eye-oh,
(Next girl) is the one who'll be having all the fun,
and we don't want (previous girl) anymore.

Samaris · 09-06-2015 11:03pm

I hope it's not bad form to necro this thread, but I find these things fascinating!

We had "kerbs" under that name - for the record, I'll out myself as perhaps not quuuuite being an oulwan, so I hope you'll forgive me

- playing in Waterford in the mid-90s. Same game - tossing the ball to hit the kerbs and catch it, with or without tricks.

Also had olly-olly-oxenfree, although I don't remember it staying around long.

British Bulldog - think it's been called Bulldogs earlier in the thread.

Mother May I - the steps game.

What's the Time, Mister Wolf

Duck, Duck, Goose

Red Letter - was never that popular though. You could absolutely clean up with a couple of long middle names!

40, 40, Home - Probably that 21 game, just counting to forty. Also known as "Den" in other parts of the country.

Ooh, something about a frog on a wall, or possibly in a well. We'd all stand on - a bench in the schoolyard in our case, arms linked, and the counter would say the rhyme while pointing down the row until they got to the "froggie", and would then try to pull them out of the linked line. Game ended when a) one person was left standing, b) the entire line fell off or, most commonly, c) when a teacher heard the chant and came and yelled at us for playing a banned game

((Aha! I found it! "Down in the valley of blankety-blank, there lived two frogs sitting back to back, singing zoom, zam, zoom-zam-zay, down in the valley of ker-PLUNK!" - On the plunk, you'd pounce))

Red Rover - That one got banned.

Wall fights - Got banned LOTS. Two people would stand facing each other on a wall and try to bash each other off it using their bodies. Most variants of it, you couldn't use hands, arms folded in front of you, sometimes hopping along the wall (it was a short wall, with grass on both sides!)

Jellybaby1 · 09-06-2015 11:54pm

Gosh Sam I don't think any of those are familiar to me, 'cept p'raps Mother May I, and even then not sure what it was. Of course Waterford is a different country to Dublin isn't it?

Samaris · 10-06-2015 5:10pm

Apparently it is!

Mother May I...I can't quite remember how that goes either. I think it was "Mother" at one side of the road and the rest at the other, and there was some rhyme about Mother May I cross the road? Whoever is On says that X may take two baby steps or one large step, etc. until one gets to her.

What's the Time Mister Wolf is almost the opposite in that no-one wants to get too close, as the Wolf will say X o' clock on most turns, meaning people have to take X number of steps, and end up with "time to eat you all!" and chase them back across the road until s/he catches one, who is then the Wolf, I think.

I think Down in the Valley (the frog game) and wall-fights were things that we came up with ourselves, although I don't know where the frog song came from! Although there does seem to be a skipping rhyme that starts the same

Down in the valley
Where the green grass grows,
There sat X (X jumps in)
Sweet as a rose.
Along came (Might be a second person jumping in, might not, not sure)
And kissed her on the cheek.
How many kisses
Did she get this week?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Jellybaby1 · 11-06-2015 12:55am

That's all ringing bells for me now. I probably did play those games, but as I am so old and feeble now and my mind is merely a spider web, I can't remember them.

JillyQ · 11-06-2015 1:04am

Played so of those games when i a kid anyone remember ringaring a rosie.

Jellybaby1 · 11-06-2015 2:03am

I had many a pocketful of posies! They made me sneeze....:)

Samaris · 11-06-2015 6:41am

And we all fell down!

We played that one too a bit, but it tended to be a game that we got told to play rather than one we played ourselves.

I heard a tape (or bits of it) on...eh, must have been a documentary of Dublin in the 50s-70s; lots of small kids chanting these rhymes. Hearing Ring-a-ring-a-roses chanted by lots of small children on a crackling tape isn't cute, it's really creepy... O.O Given how often it appears in horror movies, I can't be the only one to think so?

Jellybaby1 · 11-06-2015 5:10pm

Would have made a good Hitchcock movie then!

JuliusCaesar · 17-06-2015 10:22pm

Ah, my favourite game, a multi-player game - Relievi-eye-o!

Two teams, you caught a prisoner by catching them, and they went into your teams den. Your team could have a good few caught when a sly free member of the other team got up to your den and shouted "Relieve-eee- eye-oh!" and set them all free. Oh mayhem!

There was also 'skipping' (within the chalk boxes, kicking a shoe-polish tin full of earth around, in various formations while reciting various rhymes); and French skipping (making various patterns by lifting elastic bands tied together in ropes over each other with your feet, while jumping) - there was probably a rhyme or two involved.

Then there was games like London Bridge is Falling Down.

Mother May I, and Grandmothers Footsteps, and so on, I only know because my children learned them at nursery. There were no children playing in the street anymore then, in the early 90s.

.

Rubecula · 20-06-2015 8:41pm

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Ah, my favourite game, a multi-player game - Relievi-eye-o!

Two teams, you caught a prisoner by catching them, and they went into your teams den. Your team could have a good few caught when a sly free member of the other team got up to your den and shouted "Relieve-eee- eye-oh!" and set them all free. Oh mayhem

.

wonderful. We called it Elallio. same game

campingcarist · 22-06-2015 10:58am

Antone remember a game played with a long stick and a small piece of stick, several inches long? The short stick was placed on a lowish wall with the end projecting. Then with the long stick, you had to hit the projecting piece upwards (i.e. from underneath) and then, while it was in the air you had to hit it as far from the wall as possible. (now, the mind fades and I'm not sure how the game continued) Probably your opponent had to get the short piece back to the base of the wall by hitting and end of it making it jump into the air and while up, you hit it back towards the wall. I think the number of hits to get it back was counted.

There was something repeated before the the small stick was hit away from the wall but I fail to remember that. A name springs to mind - possibly Kitty out? It used to be played a lot at school but that was over 60 years ago!

Samaris · 22-06-2015 1:12pm

campingcarist wrote: »

Antone remember a game played with a long stick and a small piece of stick, several inches long? The short stick was placed on a lowish wall with the end projecting. Then with the long stick, you had to hit the projecting piece upwards (i.e. from underneath) and then, while it was in the air you had to hit it as far from the wall as possible. (now, the mind fades and I'm not sure how the game continued) Probably your opponent had to get the short piece back to the base of the wall by hitting and end of it making it jump into the air and while up, you hit it back towards the wall. I think the number of hits to get it back was counted.

There was something repeated before the the small stick was hit away from the wall but I fail to remember that. A name springs to mind - possibly Kitty out? It used to be played a lot at school but that was over 60 years ago!

Hah, I've played that too, although it was never a "set" game. It would usually be played absently while chatting with someone or something along those lines. Funny to think it is a game with "rules" and traditions around it!

I suppose the nearest game in relative adulthood would be when sitting around a table in a pub and someone puts a beermat so it's half over the edge of the table, then flicks up from underneath and catches the beermat in the air.

looksee · 22-06-2015 2:34pm

Sounds a bit like a stick version of a 'long puck'

Samaris · 22-06-2015 4:46pm

Rubecula wrote: »

wonderful. We called it Elallio. same game

Gah, skimming over the last few posts is what suddenly connected the dots. That's what we used "olly-olly-oxenfree" for, that Relieveyo/Elallio game.

looksee · 22-06-2015 5:18pm

How do kids come up with these names?!!

Samaris · 22-06-2015 5:26pm

Sounds like something that was a word, and the word got half-remembered, or the accent varied a bit and it ends up as semi-nonsense. Yin, tan, tetra and eeney meeny miny mo both were apparently old counting systems but they only really survive now as half-remembered folk memories preserved in childrens' games.

campingcarist · 22-06-2015 7:54pm

Samaris wrote: »

Gah, skimming over the last few posts is what suddenly connected the dots. That's what we used "olly-olly-oxenfree" for, that Relieveyo/Elallio game.

Relieveyofor me. Possibly a child's sort of contraction/modification of relieve-me-oh.

budsalt · 17-07-2015 10:06pm

campingcarist wrote: »

Antone remember a game played with a long stick and a small piece of stick, several inches long? The short stick was placed on a lowish wall with the end projecting. Then with the long stick, you had to hit the projecting piece upwards (i.e. from underneath) and then, while it was in the air you had to hit it as far from the wall as possible. (now, the mind fades and I'm not sure how the game continued) Probably your opponent had to get the short piece back to the base of the wall by hitting and end of it making it jump into the air and while up, you hit it back towards the wall. I think the number of hits to get it back was counted.

There was something repeated before the the small stick was hit away from the wall but I fail to remember that. A name springs to mind - possibly Kitty out? It used to be played a lot at school but that was over 60 years ago!

I remember this one,it was called 'catty stick' the small stick was pared with a knife at each end. It was placed on the ground and you would belt one of the pointed ends with the big stick and when it was in the air you belted it again to see how far you could get it to go.

campingcarist · 19-07-2015 9:30am

Lexicographer wrote: »

Where you going, Bob?
Down the road, Bob.
For what, Bob?
For rhubard.
Can I go, Bob?
No, Bob.
Why, Bob?
Cos you don't like rhubarb!

We used this rhyme as a ball game, two tennis balls against a wall!!! Hours of fun.

Kids now-a-days just don't know how to have fun without spending a load of money.

campingcarist · 19-07-2015 9:33am

budsalt wrote: »

I remember this one,it was called 'catty stick' the small stick was pared with a knife at each end. It was placed on the ground and you would belt one of the pointed ends with the big stick and when it was in the air you belted it again to see how far you could get it to go.

That's the one alright. Well done, budsalt.

looksee · 19-07-2015 10:22am

It amazed me as a kid that my mother, who was ancient (well 35 maybe) could play two-ball against a wall much faster and more accurately than me or any of the other kids. Including the bounce ones and the under your leg ones (in spite of her skirts). Mindboggling.

Jellybaby1 · 19-07-2015 2:56pm

looksee wrote: »

It amazed me as a kid that my mother, who was ancient (well 35 maybe) could play two-ball against a wall much faster and more accurately than me or any of the other kids. Including the bounce ones and the under your leg ones (in spite of her skirts). Mindboggling.

Good grief woman, why can't you do that? I CAN! Even in my sixties! I taught my daughter to do it, but for some reason she can't do it as fast or fluidly as wot I can! I'm GRRRRRRREAT for me age!

:P

looksee · 19-07-2015 4:45pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Good grief woman, why can't you do that? I CAN! Even in my sixties! I taught my daughter to do it, but for some reason she can't do it as fast or fluidly as wot I can! I'm GRRRRRRREAT for me age! :P

Ah now JB, I didn't say I can't do it now (tho I can't) I just could not achieve her skills as a kid!

JuliusCaesar · 19-07-2015 10:35pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Good grief woman, why can't you do that? I CAN! Even in my sixties! I taught my daughter to do it, but for some reason she can't do it as fast or fluidly as wot I can! I'm GRRRRRRREAT for me age! :P

Jellybaby, are you doing lessons?

I'd so love to be able to do this again, but I can't remember how we did it!

Playground games & Kiddy Rhymes

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