Messing around outside

Is there a name for the little outdoor games/activities kids used to do outside? I am trying to collect a list of these little messing-around things. So far I have:
Loves me, Loves me not with a daisy
Grass whistling
Checking if you like butter using a buttercup
Making a snapdragon "rawr"
Pulling up a blade of grass to nip off the white part
Sucking the nectar off a catalpa flower

Does anybody know of anymore?
I am a bit worried that with the advent of the digital age and constant entertainment, we've lost a lot of these little time-fillers. I know it seems like no great loss, but still :/

A rather depressing one that we did when I was a kid was take a dandelion flower (with stem) and say, "Mama had a baby and it head popped off." You pop the flower head off of the dandelion when you say "head popped off." (You kind of flick up with your thumb, and the flower head pops off)

Needless to say, I haven't taught that one to my kids!

Things they like doing with flowers is popping open fushia buds. They also love pulling the old flower petals out of a dandelion that's closed up (but not yet to the seed stage). It's oddly satisfying to pull up those old petals sticking out the top.

the old petals is what we pull off

Another thing I did was rub purple vetch flowers on my skin. It tints skin purple (so, of course, 6 year old me pretended it was make-up!)

i know these all as "summer camp activities" (and girl scout activities, and also just hanging out in the schoolyard, back when they let you do that sort of thing).

I did all of those as a kid in the early 80s (including the head popping off thing!!)
I also would take a flower stalk off a plantain plant and tie it up into a loop in such a way that when you yanked it all the seeds would come flying off.
We used to hunt for impatiens seed pods (like a football) and squeeze them to make them explode
throw sycamore balls at each other (they're pokey)
clover chains
daisy chains
looking for four-leaf clovers

they were awesome. i hope someone else remembers some more.

Nicole reminded me of making the little guns from the stem of the Narrow-Leaf Plantain that shoots the head off.

Stick and hoop

Jacks

Tops

Marbles

Catching frogs, snakes, anything really

Yo-yos

Making Jacob's Ladders and other things from a loop of string.

Looking for artifacts in creeks

Slingshots!

Fishing

My sister-in-law used to make corn cob dolls, braiding the silk of corn like it was hair. The way she described it, they looked something like this:



Some other things we used to do--not with flowers, though:

- "Pine" cone battles. We were actually throwing the cones from Douglas Fir trees, but we didn't call them "fir cones."

- Throwing maple tree seeds, aka "helicopters" and watching them fall down.

Sucking the nectar off a catalpa flower

This reminded me of nibbling/eating the tips of clover flowers!

the original post mentioned sucking nectar off a catalpa flower - my little one is getting quite a mental list of all the flowers you can suck nectar from - honeysuckle, red clover, dead nettle…

also just getting down on the ground and watching the immediate insect show.

I also did a lot of carving. I'd carve little sticks to be pointy and think of them as my knives or spears. I also pretended sticks were fishing poles and would  "fish" in my ditch.

Speaking of the ditch, making waterfalls! I'd arrange the rocks to make rapids and waterfalls.

And, speaking of rocks, searching for cool colored rocks! And trying to smash them apart with a hammer to see if there were any crystals inside.

Clover chains and crowns
Houses for "little people" out of sticks etc
Lots of forts and creek "engineering"
Catching fireflies
Honeysuckle nectar
Mimosa leaf fans and branch "archery" and "sword fighting"
Watching crabapples we rolled down the driveway gain momentum and bounce
Pine cone battles (brutal!)

Oooh, that reminded me of bracken fern battles!

My mom hated the bracken ferns, so us kids were encouraged to pull them up. When you pull them up, they're a lot like a spear. We'd usually remove most of the lower fronds so they'd fly farther. Then we'd all try to "impale" each other with bracken!

I don't remember the name of them.
Spinners?, whirlies?

But we made these sort of spinner sticks. You carved notches down a stick. Then carve a flat-ish small piece of stick and put a small hole in the middle of it. You would then use a tack, or a small nail, or a pin, to fasten the short piece (loose, able to spin) onto the tip of the stick*. Trim/shave the small stick to make it balance. (Think of airplane propellers)

Now Hold the End opposite your spinner, and take another stick and drag it over the notches. You can get a kind of satisfying Rumble and the small stick on the end should spin. You can reverse the Direction by dragging The Stick Over The Notches the other way.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee-haw_whammy_diddle


There is also the little craft that we called God's eyes.
Take two sticks and cross them at right angles. Fasten them together usually tied with the same yarn or string you make the God's eye with.

Depending on the attention span of the kid, and to make it more permaculture, you could instruct them on how to make simple cordage out of long grasses and weed stems and use them to make the God's eye. Or use viney plants.
Berry juice and clays could add some color.  Sneak in some survival teaching there!

https://happyhooligans.ca/gods-eye-craft-weaving-for-kids/

Another variation could be to make dream catchers by making a ring  by braiding or twisting vines and stems to make  the ring.

There were also games like hide and seek. I've recently seen a game called 'fast hide' or 'hide quick"


There was also Swinging Statues.

Redlight-Greenlight-Stop!

flower ladies from hollyhocks or rose of sharons

It really depended on where we were, as to what we were able to do. I was pretty independent as a kid and my parents kept us busy, so we really enjoyed our free time.
Red Light/Green Light
Statues
Tag
Hide and Go Seek
Sword Fighting using anything that looked even vaguely like a sword
Playing with maple seeds - "twirly seeds"
Hiking - my family climbed a lot of mountains and hills in the Loveland/Estes Park, Colorado area. I have several patches from "official" trails. Goat Mountain is one we tackled annually.
Bicycle Riding - we went everywhere!! I remember getting tested for having my "bicycle ID" on a US Navy base. We had to know hand signals and where it was safe to ride. Good training!
Sports contests - running, jumping, rope climbing, swimming, swinging, ... you name it and we "trained" and had contests for bragging rights
Kick the can
Reading - a book can be read anywhere and is great company
Camping - I spent a lot of nights "camping" in the backyard, on the porch, or otherwise Not In The House. Dad would set up an old Girl Scouts canvas tent and we'd use it as a clubhouse for as long as he let us. There were also overnight camping trips for my brother with the Boy Scouts.
Visiting historical sites - if you live in an area where a lot of historical stuff happened, visiting sites can be a lot of fun and give your imagination a jumping off point for further games outside
Tree climbing
Tree house building - Dad built us a fancy free standing version, but it was fun to pretend to go live in a tree
Going to the beach!! Spending my childhood on Navy bases meant we were always near water. I spent a lot of time at the beach - it was a bike ride away! Building things - sand castles and elaborate sand sculptures, digging holes, hermit crab races, building rafts, fishing, crabbing, canoeing, ,...
Going to the library for research - my parents encouraged us to learn. Part of that was collecting plants and insects and learning to use identification guides to identify them.

Picking berries and foraging
My first adventures in preserving foods were from harvesting a neighbors  crab apples and learning to make jelly. I was also able to find and ID a loquat tree, and was caught by the neighbor eating the fruit, which panicked them because they just thought it was a nice tree.

Catching wildlife (insects, green anoles, small amphibians, creating vivariums, making a "zoo", dealing with the problems in trying to keep wild animals who didn't want to be kept - LOTS of research
Dress up and playing pretend - the imagination rules!
Clapping games, skipping games, hopscotch, jump rope, Chinese jump rope

There are books available that have descriptions and rules for a great many outside games. Some things, rolling down hills, or sliding down them on a cardboard box, don't need rules.
Thank you for the mental walk into my past. It was fun during the summers!

Popping the styles on a filaree (storksbill) seedhead and watching them corkscrew around.
Rubbing coral beans on concrete or brick and touching them to someone else's skin to raise a welt (not very nice and not something I would encourage).
Magnifying glass or other convex lens and sunlight + whatever (also one to watch out for, but you can do neat woodburning art and similar).
Catching horned lizards and setting them down next to a big anthill to watch them eat.
Picking mesquite beans for a snack.
Batting practice with coyote gourds or ornamental oranges.
Getting a bundle of cattails and turning them into a mountain of fluff.
Catching a cicada, tying a thread to its leg, and letting it fly in circles on tether (some might rule this out as cruelty, but the other thing we did was feed them to the chickens).
Floating down the streets of our neighbourhood in inner tubes when the monsoon rains filled them with runoff. Towing with bikes was a real blast.

Can I get a how-to on the plantain shooting thing? I have tried looking it up to no avail...

Almond Thompson wrote:Can I get a how-to on the plantain shooting thing? I have tried looking it up to no avail...

I read this and hit the interwebs. You're right, after a lot of poking around, I couldn't find anything about popping the heads or seeds off of plantain as a game for children.

I did, however, learn an awful lot about the plant and it's various species, uses, recipes, habits, growth patterns and requirements, and all sorts of other information.
I am now planning to grow plantain in my garden, not just as a non pulled "weed", but in it's own place as a green, grain, vegetable , and Very Useful plant.
Thank you for sending me on my search! While I didn't find what I had looked for, I learned so much more than I could have hoped.

Blowing things up with firecrackers.  Playing with matches.  Water fights.  Hula Hoops.  Lawn Darts.  Jumping bicycles off ramps, preferably with cardboard and spokes making "motor noise."  Riding various livestock.  Digging to China.  Hydraulic engineering.  Climbing a pine tree until it bends, and then getting it swinging to get to the next tree, and seeing how many you can traverse.  Making crude vehicles from junk such as a baby carriage.  Exploring construction sites. Jumping off cliffs to land on max-slope sand. Swimming, diving, skim-boarding, etc.  Sand castles.  Ghost stories.  Returning pop bottles for candy, all at one store.  Reading forbidden literature, such as MAD magazine.  Fixing things.  Exploring garbage and junk, and up-cycling some of it.  Complaining that there's nothing to do.  
My friend Chief Kitpou grew up where everyone knew that to grow up strong and fit, a boy had to rub the dust from butterfly wings on his chest.  They chased those butterflies for hours, but it sure worked.  

Popping the heads off plaintains: Pick the stalk with the seed head on it. Wrap the stalk around itself, making the loop just below the seed head. Then quickly slip that loop against the head, making it shoot off. Regular playground activity when I was a kid.

We also played freeze tag, uncle sam, spud, kickball, horse, tetherball, ran races, held family olympics with whatever made up sports we could think of using what we had (ex: holding up bricks the longest with arms out straight), climbed trees, monopoly marathons, jump rope contests, jacks, chinese jump rope (learned on Zoom, the show, not the website), gymnastics, and the list going on.

The main thing I think was that we were not allowed to sit around and watch tv. Inside or out, we made it up as we went along. We had a few board games and toys, but not many. If we complained of boredom, we were put to work, so we knew better.

Also, when my kid was 11-ish, he and friends would race outside for break in between classes (at a homeschool center) and play everybody's it tag. I still don't understand the rules. Anyway, once kids began getting ipads, that was it. My kid did not have one and he was so upset that everyone else stopped playing outside. I say less structure was great for us, but no choice of getting on a device. My mom even figured out how to remove the tv cord way back in the 70's-80's when she went to work, so we couldn't watch. We did chores then did whatever we could make up.

At the same homeschool center, once the outside play stopped, I taught a class called Playground Games, where I taught the kids some of the games I used to play. Their favorite was Sharks and Minnows, almost forgot!

And my sister found this gem somewhere and sent it to me, which I used in the class.  Hope this works, I've never attached a pic before.

Wow! talking about going back to childhood LOL

1. Drawing race track with a stick in the dirt and used bottle caps which we flicked with fingers. Each racer had 3 chances to flick at one time. The first one who got to the finish line
    won. If the cap bottle got flicked off the track, the racer was out. The longer and curvier the track, the more fun it was to play.

2. Drawing arrows on hard surfaces with broken piece of brick, or a stick on dirt to find a “final destination”. The first one there was a winner. That could take a whole day!

3. Drawing huge snail shell in a dirt or pavement, dividing into squares, and hopping on one leg over the squares to the middle (center of the shell was the resting area) and back. The object of the game was to skip through without stopping, without support, without stepping on any line. Once accomplished, the hopper could draw his/her own symbol on chosen square, and this square would be a space where the next time that same hopper could rest and keep on hopping on one leg to the center and back.
However, the next person (hopper) would follow the same rule but had to skip over the previous players square. If there were 3 or 4 players and each would draw its own symbol, then this was a great game to learn how to balance.

4. Taking turns playing a game using used horseshoe studs (similar to knucklebones game)

5. Playing pick-up sticks game and variety of board games

6. Picking wild nuts and making people or animals connecting pieces using matches (the paper type was              
    unknown to us)

7. Jumping through long rubber  

8. Jumping rope (the longer and more people the better).

9. Climbing trees

10. Building tunnels under the snow and fortresses.

11. Building huts from branches (yes, almost every kid  had small foldable knives)

12. Playing Pigeons and Hawks (needed at least 6 people to play pigeons and 2 to play hawks)

13. Badminton, volley ball, soccer....

And some already mentioned by others,  some we made up as came along, and some that today, would be a big NO-NO.   LOL
Funny to remember them now…..It made feel nostalgic

Some I've never heard of

Taking a blade of grass, the wide and thin kind, putting it between your slightly folded thumbs, then extending thumbs to place it under tension. Now it's a musical reed -- blow between your thumbs to make lots of noise!

Edit: I think this is what Almond meant when she said "grass whistling."

Aside (caution: sombre material):  make up games that teach practical and survival skills in your environment. These elders did, and it paid off.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65871238
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-65874377

Look what I found as well!!

Almond Thompson wrote:
Grass whistling

34 and I still do that!

Finding the white dead-nettle flowers and sucking out the tiny bit of sweet sweet liquid. Not sure if that's a game?

Almond Thompson wrote:Look what I found as well!!

This one looks fun! Guess what I'll be doing on my weekend walk...

Some games that I remember from when I was a kid, does anyone remember these:

Kick the Can
Twister
Hula Hoops
Hop Scotch
Croquet
Jump Rope
Jumping Jacks
Jacks

Making mud pies, soup, and potions from plants and sticks and dirt in whatever random containers I could find.

Making art with stuff- rock mosaics, petal pictures, drawing with sticks and mud, weaving with grass.

Looking for images in the clouds.

Watching ants and giving them crumbs of my lunch/snack to see what they would do.

Setting up a store with rocks, bark, sticks and such. Leaves were money.

Drawing maps of my yard or neighborhood but drawing in made up stuff like a fairy tree or pirate treasure. I still do this occasionally as an adult- it's fun. Actually I still do a lot of these things when I remember to take the time to play outside.

Reading this post made me realize that I need to get out in the yard and clear up the path to the woods. I have let it get overgrown with nettles and blackberries this year. The yard and garden are fun but maybe not the same as the wildness of the woods where they are allowed to dig and chop and build and make their own little worlds.

I used to set up all sorts of woodsy tea parties with acorn cups and bark plates and inscribed invitations to family members on swatches of birch bark with a stick. I had a little outdoor “kitchen” area in the woods where I’d prep everything.

On the beach, we’d comb for driftwood, shells, ocean-weathered glass fragments and other treasures and set up “shop”.

We also loved to pop the jewelweed seed pods, or better yet, initiate the uninitiated by asking them to reach over and pick a swollen one and watch the look of surprise on their face when it explodes at the slightest touch!

Oh my Karuna! That sounds delightful

Am I dreaming or has no one said acorn cap whistle?
(sprouting acorns)

also, peanutbutter pinecone birdfeeder
raising "pet" tadpoles

we used to dig for "rootbeer" roots (birch) and try to find salamanders

Ah, I was lucky to have this as my childhood! We lived on a road with about a dozen houses surrounded by woods. Kids need free-play time outside, adults too, it is good for the soul. Here are a few things off the top of my head I remember doing:

Collecting speckled oak galls or "poppers" and popping them. We'd also hoard them in holes outside during recess at school, and called them fairy money. Acorns too.

Digging up clay and making things from it, just lots of digging projects.

Collecting pretty and interesting rocks.

Floating the creek, wading and swimming.

Skipping rocks on water.

Seeing which thing will float the furthest or fastest.

Making "potions" out of leaves, water, mud.

Making tunnels and rooms in tall grass.

Stick wars. Making swords and bows and stuff from things we could find.

Looking for snakes, grasshoppers, caterpillars etc.

Balancing and walking along logs, embankments, rocks. Seeing if we could ride our bikes along those same things.

Making little houses and towns out of rocks, sticks, and leaves for the "tiny people".

Playing hide-and-seek and better yet, sardines.

Coming up with elaborate and dramatic stories and plots to accompany our games.
We also had "the creature" which was supposedly a white coyote or dog/coyote hybrid we all pretended to have seen. Like our own local cyptid.

In my 2nd grade, there was a game a group of girls used to play. It began with a chant of “Wash day, wash day, hope nobody comes today.”

If anyone else can recall this, I would appreciate it.

We used to dart each other with wall barley. The flower spikes come apart at the nodes and will stick in your clothes.

source

Another (maybe UK only?) big tradition is  Conkers - drill a hole through a horse chestnut seed, hang it on a string and hit each other's conker. Tally each one yours breaks to get a champion score.

Pooh sticks.

Making sailing boats from curled up leaves.

Bark rubbings, leaf prints,

Spore prints from mushrooms

We had a pine tree of some kind in our front garden and as well as climbing it, I loved to pop the resin bubbles under the thin bark.

Marking secret trails with sticks and stones

Animal tracking in snow and mud

Did anyone else make seasons with grass flowers? They are blooming at the moment. Out of order, but you pluck the grass and start with "summer", strip the seeds off - "winter", drop the seeds over the head -"autumn", chuck the stalk in the air -"spring"!

Oh and dandelion clocks! You blow the seeds off and the number of puffs tells the time! Must be completely random though?

Mud pies of course, playing with potato bugs, see how many knots I could tie in a blade of grass, lots and lots and lots of pretending all the time, climbing trees, eating sour clover with my cuzzies.  This does not include fun things to do in the sand haha..

Nancy Reading wrote:We used to dart each other with wall barley. The flower spikes come apart at the nodes and will stick in your clothes.

I have it on very good authority that kids in Texas still play that game with "spear grass" a wild grass that's very common, has very long awns and a burr-like tip. It gets stuck in fur frequently and can cause some nasty problems, but is very definitely spear-shaped and pretty aerodynamic. (Andropogon gerardii - big bluestem and its relative little bluestem)

Found some today that will probably get mowed back as soon as the ground dries enough for mowing.