Did you play any clapping or skipping games as a kid?

[wintermom]

I used to do a whole variety of clapping and skipping games in the school yard during recess as a kid. I can still remember some of them. I didn't teach any of them to my own dc, though. There were also a whole variety of rhymes to say or sing when picking who was going to be "it." 

Which ones do you remember doing as a kid? Did your dc learn any, either from you or from school? I don't even know if kids still do that kind of thing.

Some things I still remember:

Clapping with another person: Oh little playmate, come out and play with me...

Skipping (2 parallel ropes held still): Mississippi

Picking "It": My mother and your mother were hanging up clothes, my mother punched your mother right in the nose...

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by wintermom

[Lucy the Valiant]

Yes! And also string games!

[73349]

Yes.  One was like this:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black,

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back--

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For fifty cents, cents, cents

To watch the elephant, elephant, elephant

Jump over the fence, fence, fence....

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Oh my, yes. So many!

And elastics! I loved elastics.

Ah, memories of youth ☺️

[wintermom]

35 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Oh my, yes. So many!

And elastics! I loved elastics.

Ah, memories of youth ☺️

What did you do with elastics?

[wintermom]

49 minutes ago, Lucy the Valiant said:

Yes! And also string games!

Yes! I did cats in the craddel. Later in life, I met some people who told stories while they made patterns and designs with strings to illustrate their story. It was fascinating.

[wintermom]

40 minutes ago, 73349 said:

Yes.  One was like this:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black,

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back--

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For fifty cents, cents, cents

To watch the elephant, elephant, elephant

Jump over the fence, fence, fence....

This reminds me of a Great Big Sea song:

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

35 minutes ago, wintermom said:

What did you do with elastics?

I wonder if this was a thing in other places? It was huge here in the early 80s.

You needed at least three people, and you need a very long loop of elastic.

Two people are the holders, and the loop of elastic is stretched between them. The third person is the jumper.

There were all sorts of rhymes and chants to go with the jumps, and the elastic would get higher and higher.

What a fun trip down memory lane 🙂

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I found a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/U-nyeSgowBo

[vonfirmath]

1 hour ago, 73349 said:

Yes.  One was like this:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black,

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back--

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For fifty cents, cents, cents

To watch the elephant, elephant, elephant

Jump over the fence, fence, fence....

I read a book about this rhyme but I thought they made it up for the book!

Viva Durant and the secret of hte silver buttons

[vonfirmath]

The one I remember went like this:

Say Say my playmate, come out and play with me. And bring your dollies three and we'll be jolly friends forevermore.

 

We went to visit missionary friends in Mexico and I played this with their daughter. (while we climbed the tree in their backyard. not sure why I connect those)

 

[Laura Corin]

There was a clapping game- 

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what he could see see see

But all that he could see see see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.

There was also Oranges and Lemons, which started with one girl semi-caged by the arms of two others, and ended with the two chasing the one. I didn't like that.

[Drama Llama]

36 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

I wonder if this was a thing in other places? It was huge here in the early 80s.

You needed at least three people, and you need a very long loop of elastic.

Two people are the holders, and the loop of elastic is stretched between them. The third person is the jumper.

There were all sorts of rhymes and chants to go with the jumps, and the elastic would get higher and higher.

What a fun trip down memory lane 🙂

We called that Chinese jump rope.

[Drama Llama]

30 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

The one I remember went like this:

Say Say my playmate, come out and play with me. And bring your dollies three and we'll be jolly friends forevermore.

 

We went to visit missionary friends in Mexico and I played this with their daughter. (while we climbed the tree in their backyard. not sure why I connect those)

 

Say say my enemy.

Come out and fight with me

Bring out your dragons three

Climb up my poison tree

Slide down my razor blade

Into my cellar door

and we’ll be enemies

for ever more more more more 

[sweet2ndchance]

30 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

I found a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/U-nyeSgowBo

Yup we did that in school in the 80s in Arizona lol. We called it Chinese jump rope though.

We also did all the clapping rhymes and chants.

One that hasn't been mentioned yet that sticks out in my mind went something like:

Down by the banks of the Hanky-Panky

Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank

Singing A, E, I, O, U Ker-plop!

 

And all the versions of Miss Suzy lol!

 

Nope didn't teach my kids any of it.... dunno why just never came up as a life skill I guess lol 😛

[ScoutTN]

I did know some. Never taught them to Dd, but she learned some at summer camp, along with songs like “John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmidt”. 

[vonfirmath]

6 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

I did know some. Never taught them to Dd, but she learned some at summer camp, along with songs like “John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmidt”. 

My dad taught us John Jacob and we sang it over and over heartily!

 

(Also the one about the little polka dot bikini)

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by vonfirmath

[Wishes]

22 minutes ago, sweet2ndchance said:

Yup we did that in school in the 80s in Arizona lol. We called it Chinese jump rope though.

We also did all the clapping rhymes and chants.

One that hasn't been mentioned yet that sticks out in my mind went something like:

Down by the banks of the Hanky-Panky

Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank

Singing A, E, I, O, U Ker-plop!

 

And all the versions of Miss Suzy lol!

 

Nope didn't teach my kids any of it.... dunno why just never came up as a life skill I guess lol 😛

Yes to all of those (also from AZ in 80’s), but the bullfrog one for us was:

down by the banks of the hanky panky

where the bullfrogs jumped from bank to bank saying eep. Ipe, ope, op

eep opidilly and ker-plop.

also yes to the playmate and alter enemy version. 

we had one of those “wee sing” books yhat had a lot of the “nice “ versions.
 

 

[Dmmetler]

I did some as a kid, but many, many more as an Orff teacher :). Also rock passing games, cup games. Tinkiling, pulli stick games, Etc. basically, anything that can be played with items at hand (rope, cup, loops of elastic, sticks. Rocks, etc). We did these a lot at workshops, espeicsllt ones focused on learning activities from different parts of the world and cultures. 
 

 

 

 

[SKL]

Yes, we had a whole list of clapping and skipping games that we played in the neighborhood.

I taught my kids some, but they also learned a lot of my childhood games in school aftercare.  Good thing they had aftercare, because there were no other kids on our block.  (Their group kiddy activities had "games," but they were mentally unchallenging and completely adult-led.)

[Melissa Louise]

Yes, so many. 

One of the clapping games was called Miss Mary Mack, I think. 

[SounderChick]

Yes I was a tomboy so not super often but they were common.

[MercyA]

So many clapping games. We adored them. It was very bonding for us, I think. Kept our hands warm on cool days, too. 🙂

Our My Jolly Playmate went like this:

My jolly playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree

Slide through my rain barrel, climb through my cellar door, and we'll be jolly friends, forever more, 1, 2, 3, 4.

I'm sorry playmate, I cannot play with you, my dolly's got the flu, boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo

Ain't got no rain barrel, ain't got no cellar door, but we'll be jolly friends, forever more, 1, 2, 3, 4.

We also did Miss Suzy and this one:

I wish I had a nickel
I wish I had a dime
I wish I had a boyfriend
Who kissed me all the time!

My Ma gave me a nickel
My Pa gave me a dime.
My Sister gave me a boyfriend,
Who'd kiss me all the time

My Ma took back the nickel,
My Pa took back the dime.
My Sister took back her boyfriend,
and gave me Frankenstein!

He made me wash the dishes,
He made me wash the floors,
He made me wash his underwear,
So I kicked him out the door

I kicked him over London,
I kicked him over France.
I kicked him to Hawaii,
where he learned to Hula dance! [Actually I think I remember kicking him in a trashcan at the end...]

We loved jump roping rhymes, too. A couple were:

Cinderella, dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella, made a mistake, kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take? (1, 2, 3.....)

and

Fudge, fudge, call the judge!
Mama's had a newborn baby!
Wrap it up in tissue paper,
Send it down the elevator.
Twins, triplets, boy, girl... (repeat)

Our favorite picking "it" rhyme was the well-known "eenie, meenie, minie, mo, catch a tiger by the toe," but I've since learned its origins were racist.

After everyone hid in hide and seek, the seeker would finish counting by calling out, "Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie, who's not ready, hollar 'I'!"

I had such a lovely childhood.

Edited March 16, 2022 by MercyA

[Dianthus]

Say, say oh playmate

I'm sorry, playmate

Caterina Materina

Sailor went to Sea

Have you ever, ever, ever in your long legged life seen a long legged sailor and his long legged wife...

Ham bone, ham bone, have you heard, mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird...

Down by the banks of the hanky panky (but our lyrics were different than the above. At the end, "hip, hop hippity hop, one jumped over with a kerplop")

That's all I can think of now. I taught a couple to dd.

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Spirea

[Brittany1116]

We did Miss Mary Mack and A Sailor Went to Sea. We also did...

Miss Mary had a baby 

His name was Tiny Tim

She put him in the bathtub

To see if he could swim 

He drank up all the water

He ate up all the soap

He tried to eat the bathtub

But it wouldn't go down his throat

[Jean in Newcastle]

 

Explanation:

https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=2238

Edited March 16, 2022 by Jean in Newcastle

[Eos]

Say say oh playmate, Miss Mary Mack, and take me out to the ballgame were clapping games.  My kids do cool modern ones that I don't know the names of but don't have words.

Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie plus allee allee all come free when it was getting too dark to play anymore

Lemonade: Here we come / where from? / New Orleans / What's your trade? / Lemonade / Show us some if you're not afraid - then skits and a race back to "the line" when the skit was guessed correctly

On swings we'd do One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready then do an underdog on "four to go"

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Eos

[ieta_cassiopeia]

There was a skipping game I used to play that started:

/ There's a / party on the / hill, will you / come?
/ With you / own green* / bowl and your / own / cream / bun?

* - "Green" would be substituted for any other single-syllable colour.

I say "started" because I was really bad at skipping games and usually got tripped up by that skip happening on the very first word, and I never saw anyone get past "bun".

[wintermom]

10 hours ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

I wonder if this was a thing in other places? It was huge here in the early 80s.

You needed at least three people, and you need a very long loop of elastic.

Two people are the holders, and the loop of elastic is stretched between them. The third person is the jumper.

There were all sorts of rhymes and chants to go with the jumps, and the elastic would get higher and higher.

What a fun trip down memory lane 🙂

This is exactly like what we did with plastic skipping ropes. I guess they act similarly to the giant elastic. I preferred this type of "skip rope" to the moving single or "double dutch" one. I didn't appreciate getting hit on the head with the rope. 😉 

[wintermom]

9 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

There was a clapping game- 

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what he could see see see

But all that he could see see see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.

There was also Oranges and Lemons, which started with one girl semi-caged by the arms of two others, and ended with the two chasing the one. I didn't like that.

I did this one, too! So cool that these same or similar rhymes are common to English-speaking countries across oceans. I could go out on the sidewalk in England or Australia and start chanting these and see if any kids came running to play instead of looking at me like I was from another planet. They might tell me the words are "wrong" but not that I was behaving weirdly. 🤣

Edited March 16, 2022 by wintermom

[Farrar]

I got string banned at my high school. I started a fad of everyone playing old little kid string games and gave out string and a couple of weeks into it, the administration made an announcement that everyone needed to stop with the string. You have to understand, my high school was ENORMOUS. This was a very proud moment. I can still do a Jacob's Ladder in like two seconds flat.

[Home'scool]

We used to play a game called 7-Up. You would take a ball and bounce it 7 times while counting 1 ...2...3 etc.

Then you would bounce the ball off the wall 7 times

Then you would have to bounce it under one leg 7 times 

etc. ... it would get harder as you went along. I think one of the steps was to throw the ball in the air,  spin around, and catch it 7 times in a row.

[wintermom]

40 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I got string banned at my high school. I started a fad of everyone playing old little kid string games and gave out string and a couple of weeks into it, the administration made an announcement that everyone needed to stop with the string. You have to understand, my high school was ENORMOUS. This was a very proud moment. I can still do a Jacob's Ladder in like two seconds flat.

It's sad how string, balls and playing games are now "dangerous" on school grounds. Why not work on changing people's misbehaviour rather than attempting to remove every piece of material that could be used in harmful ways. We do this with puppy training (or at least try). Are all people to be assumed to be like cats, who cannot be trained so easily? 🤣

Edited March 16, 2022 by wintermom

[MercyA]

4 hours ago, Eos said:

Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie plus allee allee all come free when it was getting too dark to play anymore

I always thought the phrase was "olly olly oxen free" which of course makes no sense, unlike "all come free," which totally does!

But I looked it up and some people really DO traditionally say "olly olly oxen free" so maybe I did have it right for our region in the Midwest.

Love this thread.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, wintermom said:

It's sad how string, balls and playing games are now "dangerous" on school grounds. Why not work on changing people's misbehaviour rather than attempting to remove every piece of material that could be used in harmful ways. We do this with puppy training (or at least try). Are all people to be assumed to be like cats, who cannot be trained so easily? 🤣

It's such a classic school move, right? Like, can't you just appreciate that a bunch of teenagers are playing with STRING instead of all the "bad" teenage things? But nope. Because it's all about control. I'm sure no one in the admin knew it was me who started that. We were constantly doing things that ticked off the administration in retrospect. Like, we held all these throwback days and weird dress up days - sort of like spirit week, but our school didn't do stuff like that other than just school colors and things. And we'd do them on really random days. And then walk around and admire how many kids were wearing funny hats that we didn't even know. That sort of thing.

[Dianthus]

1 hour ago, wintermom said:

It's sad how string, balls and playing games are now "dangerous" on school grounds. Why not work on changing people's misbehaviour rather than attempting to remove every piece of material that could be used in harmful ways. We do this with puppy training (or at least try). Are all people to be assumed to be like cats, who cannot be trained so easily? 🤣

Made me think of this NZ school

 

[wintermom]

2 hours ago, Spirea said:

Made me think of this NZ school

 

I love that the only directive from the principal is, "Don't kill anyone." As a mom, I'd have added, "Don't kill yourself or stain any good clothes with blood." Obviously the principal is not a mom. 😅

I'm trying to picture the insurance policy at this school. Maybe NZ doesn't bother with that sort of stuff. 😉 

Norway's standard outlook on risk and injury was similar to NZ; take responsibility for your own actions. If you hurt yourself, don't point the finger at someone else and try to grab any money you can. It's a much easier society to be an educator in. Unfortunately, over the past couple of decades,

Canada has moved away from personal responsibility and toward the "American" insurance practices, where risk assessment is, um, shall we say "bizarre." We have universal health insurance, like NZ, so I don't know why the insurance companies suddenly have that much power over people's actions - perhaps it's political? I'm not really sure other than someone is making a ton of money.

Edited March 16, 2022 by wintermom

[Jean in Newcastle]

19 minutes ago, wintermom said:

I love that the only directive from the principal is, "Don't kill anyone." As a mom, I'd have added, "Don't kill yourself or stain any good clothes with blood." Obviously the principal is not a mom. 😅

I'm trying to picture the insurance policy at this school. Maybe NZ doesn't bother with that sort of stuff. 😉 

I don't have an issue with letting kids run around "free range" so to speak (within the confines of a school yard).  But I wonder if "don't kill anyone" extends to "don't bully anyone".  I didn't mind if my kids climbed up high but I would have minded if someone was beating them up (or they were beating someone else up). 

[Lady Florida.]

We played a lot of clapping games though I can't recall any skipping games. Two clapping games I most remember are Miss Mary Mack and A Sailor Went to Sea.

We also called elastics Chinese jump rope. I think they were sold under that name.

I don't remember many regular jump rope games other than just jumping but we had several that went with Double Dutch jump rope. One was the alphabet game. I don't remember all the words but once you started saying the letters of the alphabet the letter you tripped on was the first initial of the boy you would marry. If you had a crush you always tried to trip on the letter of his name. If you had a good friend at one or both ends of the ropes they'd purposely try to trip you when you got to the letter of his name.

[wintermom]

1 minute ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I don't have an issue with letting kids run around "free range" so to speak (within the confines of a school yard).  But I wonder if "don't kill anyone" extends to "don't bully anyone".  I didn't mind if my kids climbed up high but I would have minded if someone was beating them up (or they were beating someone else up). 

Apparently, the school in this program saw bullying decrease, along with injuries. 

[Farrar]

13 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Apparently, the school in this program saw bullying decrease, along with injuries. 

I can easily imagine that. I mean, I can imagine the other way as well, depending. But a lot of bullying seems to result from boredom and competition for resources and attention.

[Eos]

We also did a thing that I don't know the name of: as you walk and step with your right foot you say "right, right, right for her country bag and baggage, humpdeedeedle (while you do a little skip and land with your left foot forward) left, left, left a wife and four fat children without any gingerbread thought he did right, right, right for her country etc" and on forever.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Eos

[wintermom]

33 minutes ago, Eos said:

We also did a thing that I don't know the name of: as you walk and step with your right foot you say "right, right, right for her country bag and baggage, humpdeedeedle (while you do a little skip and land with your left foot forward) left, left, left a wife and four fat children without any gingerbread thought he did right, right, right for her country etc" and on forever.

That's really cute! We did "if you step on a crack (in the sidewalk), you break you mother's back."

My mil talks about walking along with a friend, and if they have to split up and walk around a small barrier (rail, lightpost, etc.) they'd say, "peas and carrots." I'm not sure if there was anything more to the "chant." When she says it now, we look at her like she is a weirdo. 🤣

[Eos]

8 minutes ago, wintermom said:

That's really cute! We did "if you step on a crack (in the sidewalk), you break you mother's back."

My mil talks about walking along with a friend, and if they have to split up and walk around a small barrier (rail, lightpost, etc.) they'd say, "peas and carrots." I'm not sure if there was anything more to the "chant." When she says it now, we look at her like she is a weirdo. 🤣

We say "bread and butter" when something divides us as we're walking along.  We means myself and dds generally, though ds's learned it all too.

[GailV]

Speaking of stick games, did anyone ever play with Lummi sticks?  2 players sit opposite, pound them on the ground, flip them, smack them together, toss them to each other, all while singing/chanting. 

My dad had a set of 4 that he had carved, and they have disappeared. I am annoyed. 

As for original post, yeah, we did jump rope with chants, Chinese jump rope, hand clap games, string games, jacks, all sorts of things like that. I taught a lot of it to my kids when they were little. A lot of it is great for practice crossing the midline, eye focus at various depths, and whatnot.

[Dmmetler]

5 hours ago, GailV said:

Speaking of stick games, did anyone ever play with Lummi sticks?  2 players sit opposite, pound them on the ground, flip them, smack them together, toss them to each other, all while singing/chanting. 

My dad had a set of 4 that he had carved, and they have disappeared. I am annoyed. 

As for original post, yeah, we did jump rope with chants, Chinese jump rope, hand clap games, string games, jacks, all sorts of things like that. I taught a lot of it to my kids when they were little. A lot of it is great for practice crossing the midline, eye focus at various depths, and whatnot.

I had a set for my classroom 🙂

[Terabith]

On 3/15/2022 at 11:03 PM, Dmmetler said:

I did some as a kid, but many, many more as an Orff teacher :). Also rock passing games, cup games. Tinkiling, pulli stick games, Etc. basically, anything that can be played with items at hand (rope, cup, loops of elastic, sticks. Rocks, etc). We did these a lot at workshops, espeicsllt ones focused on learning activities from different parts of the world and cultures. 
 

 

 

 

Okay, this is the first time in my life I have ever heard anyone else mention tininkling. I was starting to think I made it up.  We didn’t have recess but we had pe every day, and that was one of the things we had giant units on in third and/ or fourth grade.  We even had a parents night demonstration of it, clapping sticks together and pounding on ground while kids jumped in between them in various patterns.  It was neat. 
 

Back when I was homeschooling, I would have loved a co-op class on clapping games, string games, and jump rope rhymes.  I never really knew them well enough to teach my kids, but that would have been way better than the Classical Conversations, that was literally the only game in town and the only way to meet other homeschoolers.  The other thing that would have been very fun is a running games class.  I wanted to outsource old school pe and messy art projects, not academics. 

[wintermom]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Back when I was homeschooling, I would have loved a co-op class on clapping games, string games, and jump rope rhymes.  I never really knew them well enough to teach my kids, but that would have been way better than the Classical Conversations, that was literally the only game in town and the only way to meet other homeschoolers.  The other thing that would have been very fun is a running games class.  I wanted to outsource old school pe and messy art projects, not academics. 

My dh and I organized a homeschool basketball program, and it eventually morphed into a "Not basketball" program where we simply played all kinds of fun running games in a gym with the kids. It was great. The kids loved it. 

[Dmmetler]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Okay, this is the first time in my life I have ever heard anyone else mention tininkling. I was starting to think I made it up.  We didn’t have recess but we had pe every day, and that was one of the things we had giant units on in third and/ or fourth grade.  We even had a parents night demonstration of it, clapping sticks together and pounding on ground while kids jumped in between them in various patterns.  It was neat. 
 

Back when I was homeschooling, I would have loved a co-op class on clapping games, string games, and jump rope rhymes.  I never really knew them well enough to teach my kids, but that would have been way better than the Classical Conversations, that was literally the only game in town and the only way to meet other homeschoolers.  The other thing that would have been very fun is a running games class.  I wanted to outsource old school pe and messy art projects, not academics. 

I’ve put homeschool music classes on my schedule for fall (with the hope that COVID will allow it) and that’s one of the things I have planned. Both because a) it’s fun, and b) those kind of activities require little or no equipment (which is WHY we had so many workshops focused on them for our local AOSA chapter-because most of us taught in urban schools which had little or no budget for equipment. But we could play “Pizza-Pizza Daddy O” and “Strut miss Suzy”, Lummi stick games from Polynesia can be played with tightly rolled up newspapers wrapped with masking tape, cup games like “When I’m Gone” and “Kashinga” can be played with recycled plastic cups or aluminum cans or washed out school milk cartons, rock games like Oboc Asi Na Sa can be played with any reasonably sized object, etc.  

 

[Resilient]

Clapping, jump rope, 7-up, dutch jump, Chinese jump rope, pick-up-stix, 4 square, red light-green light, mother may I, tetherball, pickup softball with goofball rules--so many fun memories returned to me by this thread.