7 Games Children Played before Technology Came along ...

1. Hopscotch

On those good old days when the sun's rays were beating down and you had nothing to do, hopscotch was one of the to go-to old school games. All you really needed was chalk, rocks and a few people to play with. The strategy to the game was picking the right rock, after all small ones jumped way too high and the large ones were too hard to throw. This game didn’t require much but it would occupy children for hours.

2. Chinese Jump Rope

In retrospect, Chinese jump rope was probably my childhood obsession. My friends and I would gather a group of people, split into teams and compete against each other. Even when we were short of a few people, we would just use chairs to hold the stretchy rope in place. In a nutshell, the game consisted of two people putting their feet inside the rope to stretch it out, while a third person would jump over and on the rope in a specific pattern. At each level the rope would be raised higher, first around the ankles, then to calves, knees and thighs.

3. Hide and Seek

Back in the old days when you had a ridiculous amount of friends and nothing to do, hide and seek was the go-to game. A certain sense of suspense of someone looking for you was exciting and thrilling! While there are variations to this game, everyone knows the general idea that somebody has to be ’It’ and count until a particular number while everybody else hides. At the end of the countdown, ‘It’ has the mission of finding every single person.

4. Capture the Flag

Capture the flag was another totally entertaining childhood game in which a number of people had to split into two teams. Each team had to chose its own home base to keep the flag in. The goal of the game was to capture the flag of the opposing team while safely making it back to your own territory. Nothing was more fun especially when you had a large group of friends.

5. Jump Rope and Double-dutch

When it came time for recess, nothing was more important than improving your skills at rope jumping with your friends. Plus who can forget all of those rhymes that made this simple exercise that much more exciting? And when simple rope jumping was not enough, double dutch was a challenge that every girl was willing to take!

6. Tag

Tag was a classic childhood game that also had many variations. While I can recall suffering many casualties while trying to save myself from getting tagged, this game really had my body moving. While I was never an avid runner, I remember always transforming into a professional sprinter in the moment of chase.

7. Cat’s Cradle

When it came to less physical type of entertainment Cat’s Cradle was quite popular. It was an incredibly portable game that you could play alone or with another person. Playing alone consisted of making different shapes while playing with someone else was all about transferring those shapes back and forth. It was an amusing game that really didn’t require much.

All of the technological advancements are really not doing that much good for the younger generations. Essentially they are supporting an indoor sedentary lifestyle for young children who should be interacting with others in an outside environment. What are some of your old school games that were the highlights of your childhood?