With No Power How Did They Occupy Themselves - Games Of The 1850s

Today we play games for fun, relaxation, competition and interaction. In ancient times games were a way for people to develop skills that would help them thrive, work and survive. Games amuse and entertain us as well as improving our mental and physical skills. Students will rotate through a variety of games played by children of the 1850's, some of these include:

Skipping
Hopscotch
Housey Housey
Quoits
Shove the halfpenny
Rainy day games - Noughts and Crosses or Boxes

http://www.goldrushcolony.com.au/schools/school-activities/core-site-activities/traditional-1850s-games

Games and Activities

of Pioneer Children

There were several games played by pioneer children that are still played today in homes, schools, and on the playground. Hide-and-Seek, baseball, jump rope, tag, and string games are just a few. Word games were played both at home and at school, because these games helped the children learn language skills. Games involving guessing were also popular, because these games were good brain exercises and helped students develop their thinking skills.

Directions are provided below for several of the games that were played during the early settlement era and are still played today. There are many more that are not covered; therefore, research more games pioneer children played. In addition, find out what types of toys the children of that time period played with to occupy any free time they may have had.

Outdoor Games
Fox and Geese	Drop the Handkercheif	Dare Base
Shadow Tag	Last Couple Out	Blind Man's Bluff
Chain Tag	Marbles

Indoor Games
Hot and Cold	Ducks Fly	Jack Straws
Simon Says	Who Has the Button	Checkers
Math Buzz	Mental Arithmetic	I Have a Basket
Twenty Questions	Cupid's Coming	Taboo

Several web sites give directions for games played by pioneer children, along with the types of toys that were played with for entertainment.

Games and Activities

of Pioneer Children

Outdoor Games
Fox and Geese	Drop the Handkercheif	Dare Base
Shadow Tag	Last Couple Out	Blind Man's Bluff
Chain Tag	Marbles

Indoor Games
Hot and Cold	Ducks Fly	Jack Straws
Simon Says	Who Has the Button	Checkers
Math Buzz	Mental Arithmetic	I Have a Basket
Twenty Questions	Cupid's Coming	Taboo

http://www.ndstudies.org/resources/activites/es/pioneer.html

Nineteenth-Century Canadian Children's Game

Traditional Children's Games

7 Traditional, or "folk,"8 games played in Canada during the nineteenth century encompass games without objects, including rhyming and chasing games, and games with objects, such as hoop rolling. Many of these games were culturally widespread and their long and poorly documented use makes it difficult to determine a place or time of origin for them. As with other aspects of folk culture, basic play of these games has tended to remain stable over time with some development of regional variations.9 Although there is little documentation of nineteenth-century Canadian children playing these games, we can deduce that their contemporary presence in our school yards and playgrounds is a function of cultural tradition, based on British, American and European antecedents that have been illustrated and described (see figs. 1 and 2). Outdoor activities during the nineteenth century included many of the games children still play today, such as tag, skipping, hopscotch, hide and seek, leap frog, crack the whip, etc. Church picnics and civic celebrations advertised a number of organized events for children, including race competitions such as sack races and wheelbarrow races.

8 Singing games show a strong adherence to structure and cadence with variation in verse. Edith Fowke's collection of Canadian children's singing games made during the 1960s show antecedents in both Newell and Gomme. Counting out rhymes like:

Onery, twoery, ickery Ann

Fillisy, Follisy, Nicholas, John

Beaver, weaver, stingelum, steever,

O-U-T-spells, "out"10

which was reportedly used in Peterborough in 1875, show up in Fowke's collection as

Onery, twoery, ickery Ann

Fillicy, fallacy my son John

Quebum quavum English knavum

Stringle-um, strangle-um, BUCK!11

Her source dated its use to 1900 in Tintern, Ontario. Newell includes the following version used in New England about 1820:

Onery uery, hickory, Ann

Filisy, folasy, Nicholas John

Queevy, quavy, Irish Mary

Stingalum, stangalum, buck.12

Figs. 1, 2. Details of a painting Children's Games (1560) by Flemish painter, Pieter Brueghel. The painting illustrates scores of children's games, many of which, like leap frog and hoop rolling, continued to be played in the nineteenth century. The hoops are barrel hoops from large barrels like the one illustrated.

Display large image of Figure 1

9 Other singing games, such as London Bridge, I Sent A Letter to My Love, A Tisket A Tasket, In and Out the Windows, etc., which many of us know from our own youth, are recorded in both Newell and Gomme. Forms of these games and skipping rhymes were probably part of the répertoire ot many nineteenth-century English-speaking Canadian children. Observation of recent changes in these types of rhymes may provide us with insight into how these changed and developed with modification of words contrasting with permanence of structure and nine. A skipping rhyme that I knew as a child had a very old cadence but a contemporary popular theme: "Hopalong Cassidy How About a Date?" Today children sing "Hey Fonzy!, How About A Date?"13 Many of the words of the original have been maintained, and the skipping game is still the same. The best sources on singing, rhyming and outdoor games in the nineteenth century are Fowke, Gomme, Newell and Brewster.14

10 Traditional children's games often use found, handmade, or locally made objects in the play, although a handmade game item does not necessarily mean that it is traditional. The corollary of this is also true: commercially, mass-produced game items may be traditional in form and use.

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/view/17246/22760