Thought of another one called: Round Up. This was a variation of tag and not quite Ringalivio/man hunt. One person was it. If they tagged/caught someone, they were both it. The idea was to catch everone eventually. To tag someone you had to grab them and say “Round Up Round Up 123” just like Ringalevio
How about “Hot peas and Butter”. In this game you hid a belt in the bushes, everyone would look for it as you said colder/warmer/hotter to signefy how close they were. When someone found the belt, they proceeded to swing and wip wildly until everyone ran back to the base
1. Red Light, Green Light, One Two Three One person (in charge) Turns their back on the rest and counts 1,2,3 red or green light and turned around quickly. if it was red light the rest had to freeze. If green keep running until “red light” illegal movement =disqualification 2. Giant Steps A leader could dictate how many giant or small steps contestants could take. The winner was decided arbitrarily by the leader….although we’d never admit that then
Freeze Games … One person was chosen to be “it.” The other participants start skipping, jumping, walking or running around until “it” yells “freeze.” Everyone then had to hold their positions like a statue. The first person to lose their balance became “it” for the next round. ; )
In Minnesota in the winter we player a game called pie. We would tramp a huge circle in the snow with pie wedges and a middle circle all tramped down. The guy that was it chased everyone around the circle trying to catch them. The center was free.Sure could work up a sweat in your snow clothes.
When we played the Alphabet Game…bouncing a ball and calling out ‘A my name is Alice, My husband’s name is Albert, we come from Alabama and eat Apples, etc. When you came to each name you had to put your right leg over the ball. That’s where the hard part came in. Usually kicked the ball away. I never got to the end either. We took turns and whoever got to the end of the alphabet…won the game. Gosh, I haven’t thought of this game in years.
I remember potsy. In Woodhaven, Queens – the game was hop scotch but the peice we played with was called a potsy. We made them by letting trucks and cars run over peice of metal. It was a treasure and you never let anyone get your potsy.
Hey, what about us girls?? You guys may consider our games wimpy, but we hung out and played on the streets and stoops too! My memories are hazy and I haven’t thought about those days lately, so I can only provide titles and brief descriptions — perhaps it will jog someone else’s memory: I moved away from Brooklyn when I was 7, so I played the following at a tender age: 1. Red Light, Green Light, One Two Three 2. Giant Steps 3. Statues I can’t recall, though, just what these games entailed! Anyone remember? Of course, our basic sidewalk game was Potsy. Although it is generally known as Hopscotch, in Borough Park, Brooklyn it was always Potsy. And it was still Potsy when we moved to Old Bethpage, Long Island (of course, many suburbanites had emigrated to Long Island from Brooklyn…) Girls were into Spalding balls too. We bounced ’em off stoops and against walls, and of course did the classic “A, my name is Alice, and my husband’s name is Andy, we come from Atlanta and we sell anchovies…” You were supposed to go through the whole alphabet, but I don’t think I ever did. And now, a confession: there were times when I could be the annoying kid sister: Sometimes when my older brother played stickball or wiffle ball in the backyard with his friends, if I felt mischievious, I’d skip across their playing field, calling out in a sing-song voice, “Interference! Interference!”
When I was a kid in Houston, there was a vacant lot in the middle of the next street over. We used to play a game there we called “English Bulldog.” The sidewalk was one boundary and a pair of fig trees at the back of the lot marked the other boundary. One kid would be the “bulldog” and all the rest (there were usually quite a few) would get behind one of the boundaries. The kid that was the bulldog would call “BULLDOG!” and the rest would run from one boundary to the other while the “bulldog” tried to tackle them. Each time someone was tackled, they had to help the original bulldog tackle the others. Eventually the tacklers outnumbered the tackle-ees until there was one left and that was the winner. Then he or she was the bulldog and the game started again.