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Fun and Games at School

Most of the games played at school required very little equipment as there wasn’t any money available to buy sporting gear. Some equipment might be brought to school by the students (e.g. marbles).

Usually a school had a bat and a ball. This could be used for a ball game, a game of scrub, or a game of 500. If the ball was lost or the bat broken students might be asked to bring in a few cents each to cover the cost of a new bat or ball. The teacher soon learned how to ump a ball game and sometimes these games were played against other schools. If only a couple of gloves were available they went to the catcher and the first base man. When the stitching started to go on the ball it would be sent home with one of the students to be restitched. Students felt important if they were chosen to take the ball home to be stitched.

During the winter some schools had a rink so they could play games, such as hockey or broomball, on the ice.

For some of the activities the students made up their own rules. Some of these were Cops and Robbers, Knife Tossing and War. In War they used missiles such as snow balls, pine cones, frozen horse turds, and sometimes, on rare occasions, even rocks. In knife tossing the boys used their own jack-knives and flipped them off their fingers. The knife had to stab into the ground. Can you imagine this game being played in schools today?

In the spring of each year, marbles was a popular game. Students usually had a little bag to carry their marbles in. It was always very disappointing if you lost your favorite marble to one of your classmates. In the classroom you had be careful as dropped marbles were quite noisy and were apt to end up in the teacher’s desk.

There were many other games like Prisoner’s Base, Red Rover, Mother May I?, Fox and Geese, King of the Castle, Tag, Pom Pom Pull Away, Kick the Can, Hide and Seek, Run Sheep Run, and Anti I Over. These games could be played with any number of students and very little or no equipment.

Hopscotch was another popular activity. All the equipment needed was supplied by nature. A twig could be used to draw the pattern in the dirt and a little stone could be used to toss. Usually only the girls played hopscotch, but it was always fun when some of the boys joined in. In hopscotch you tossed a small stone into square one and then hopped to the end and returned. You picked your stone up on the way back. You could not touch any lines or put both feet down at once except in double squares. If you failed, the next person took a turn. If you did it correctly, then you tossed the stone into square number 2 and continued. Sometimes there was a half circle shape at the top where you could put both feet down and rest for awhile. This half circle was called "Sky Blue" or the "Moon".

Skipping was also a popular activity with the girls. There were many skipping rhymes that the students knew. If they had a long rope they could have one person at each end twirling the rope and another person jumping. It was always funny to watch the boys skip as they usually weren’t very good at it.

If due to bad weather the students had to stay indoors they might play Hangman, relays, Tic Tac Toe, or sometimes the younger ones played with plasticine. One lady from Bentley remembers using checkers to curl on the classroom floor. If the school had a basement you could have a game of Shinny (similar to road hockey) or play other games, in the space a basement provided.

In the book "Memoirs of Mary Carritt Nelson" it says the warm weather activities at Carritt School were baseball, Duck on the Rock, Dare Goal, Tag, and Statues. The winter brought Fox and Geese, building snow forts, playing war with snowballs, and Shinny. Actually as long as the snow wasn’t too deep or the ground too muddy they could always play Shinny.

Some of the indoor activities when it was too cold or rainy outside would include spelling bees or other contests. Sometimes the girls would do needle work or knit.

In rural schools and at the elementary school in Bentley, swings and teeter totters were often added to the playground. Some schools also had a May Pole and perhaps a slide.

In the Bentley High School the students took part in many activities that are still present today. They played baseball, softball, basketball, tennis, volleyball, hockey, curling, broomball, and ping pong. According to some of the old high school newsletters from the 1940’s ping pong tournaments were held for high school and junior high students.

At one school where they had an ice rink one female teacher played in net for noon hour hockey games. If her side was winning the lunch hour sometimes lasted an hour and a half instead of the usual hour. This was also true for softball in the summer time. It didn’t take the students long to figure this out and use it to their advantage.

On Friday afternoons Outlet School usually had a break from the regular routine. It was time for a geography match. Opposing sides were chosen, and the first person in line named a town, city or village. Your opponent was required to name a place starting with the last letter of the town cited, and so on. If you were unable to come up with an answer within a set time, you were banished to your seat. The match continued until there was only one survivor. (place names could only be used once). Maps were scarce in libraries in those early years so it was difficult to verify the authenticity of all of the town names that were used. The teacher limited us to three towns with a name like, Alma. Alix was not allowed . Places with Z were at a premium after the combination of Tabiz / Zanzibar had been used. A spelling bee was easier to police as Outlet School had a huge Webster’s dictionary to refer to.