Friday, April 17, 2009

Some playground fun!

The other day, some of us were laughing and talking on twitter about playground fun that we had as kids. Some of the things that came up were these....

1. hopscotch
2. four square!!! Y'ALL I WAS THE QUEEN OF FOUR SQUARE!!!
3. swings
4. chalk

I know we talked about more, but I want to hear your favorite elementary memories on the playground.

I have a couple that stand out....

I was swinging and my BFF walked in front of me and I nailed her. Gave her a concussion. I'm still not over it. It was awful. She's ok and is still one of my BFF's. :)

The other memory would be playing red rover. Oh I can hear them now...."Red rover, red rover, send Fran right over!" I loved that game. I would run soooooo fast and bust through every time. And, noone, and I mean noone, would get through my arms when they tried to come bustin' through!!!

And, I remember playing some serious kick ball.

I was competitive back then and still am. Some things start on the playground and hang with us for a very long time, huh?!

I'm glad we didn't have all that fancy playground equipment either.....I can still see all the monkey bars and swings like it was yesterday.

Aaaaaahhhhh....the good ole days.

So, tell me your favorite memories of the playground. Maybe this could be "flashback Friday."

Happy Friday y'all!

19 comments:

Connie said...

I was always in the "last picked" category for team games...not so co-ordinated back then.
I also remember busting a kid's chin with the see-saw. I sat on my end and he was hovered over his...BANG! Blood everywhere. He had to get like 12 stitches I think. He never talked to me again. I still feel bad. Wonder where he is today...hope he's not in therapy!!

3girlsmom said...

Sorry. There's no way you were the queen on four square. Nope. That title's mine. You might've been the duchess or the countess or even the princess, but I was the queen.

My new fave piece of playground equipment HAS to be the swing for the handicapped kids. It's like swinging in a LaZBoy. It rocks.

And did you know that Red Rover is ILLEGAL is some places? Breaks kids arms.

Sissies.

beckyjomama said...

Hopscotch, Jacks, chinese jumprope, marbles (I stole all those boys marbles, oh yes I did - I ROCKED at marbles!!!!), kick ball, football (yep, I was one of THOSE girls!!!), monkey bars, swings, and, yes, Red Rover.

I have two vivid memories - the one where we were playin snake (ya hold hands and run in a line - like a snake!!) and I decided to close my eyes... and ran SMACK into a pole. Had to visit the principal - who was also the school nurse. The second is the time I convinced my friend that she could do a penny drop from the monkey bars. She could NOT do a penny drop, which became quite obvious as she landed on her head. She passed out, an ambulance was summoned and she missed the rest of the week of school. OH! The guilt!

Think I will focus on OTHER memories now - hopscotch, jacks ...

edub said...

I used to do gymnastics all over the playground. That was when I, you know, COULD.
Another favorite was freeze-tag (or a variation thereof). Though *I had no part of this* I remember a kid running into a bike rack and biting through his bottom lip. He had that scar all the way through high school... it was hardcore.

mer@lifeat7000feet said...

Red rover? I LOVED that game.

And kickball, foursquare, and doing penny drops off of the high bar at Blessed Sacrament Elementary School.

FUN, FUN post, Fran.

(PS--It just sounds better to say, "Red rover, red rover, send FRAN-Y right over")

Rachel said...

oh the playground...sigh.

We had it so good back then. Now playgrounds are sooooo ultra-safe they are hardly fun sometimes.

My favs I think were the swings and the merry-go-rounds. Just loved to be looking into the sky and "flowing."

My saddest memory on the playground was in Korea. I was 5 years old and swinging and twisting the swing. For some reason, I put my finger in the chain; and when I let loose, my finger broken as the chain untwisted. My dad's parents were visiting from the states and put ice on it until my mom got home. But it still took her several hours to be convinced it was broken.

Good times. ;)

Tonya said...

Mmmm, do you remember the tether ball thing?

Well lets just say it's really not meant for uncoordinated people to get within 100 yards of it.

I mean, hypothetically speaking....don't know that this has ever, ever happened (LOL) but it could hit an uncoordinated person in the head & scar them for life. Hypothetically speaking of course!

His Girl said...

*shudder* the playground can be a hard, cruel world for slow running bookworms with no ball skillz whatsoever.

oh so I've heard.

a-hem. actually, I used to hold classes on the playground. Bible club, creative lettering, poetry, things like that. Charged a nickle apiece for all non-Bible related classes. I was a mogul.

misty said...

kick ball, swinging the highest, running from the boys, 4 square, tether ball... these were just a few of my great memories from back in the day!

great blog... i will be back to visit soon!

Toknowhim said...

I am so not the athletic type... But I too remember Red Rover, and the Stoplight game...you know run on Green light and then stop when the person said red light...

I too remember getting sick on the spinning thing... Also, how you could get hurt when it was your turn to push the spinning thing if your feet didn't catch up with you.

Thanks for the memory.. Kim

Tammy said...

I must say that my favorite was kickball. I was always the athletic girl (until now) and the boys usually fought over me being on their team. Which was the ONLY time in my life boys fought over me.

Lynn said...

I found your blog through Kelly's Korner and thought I'd add my memories to your fun blog. =)

This brings back so many memories of elementary school -- yeah, the only equipment we had were the monkey bars, the swings, and some other thing they had. But usually I played kickball, Four square, ... I remember playing the Red Light, Green light, & Red Rover games ... Hmmm ... I, like Connie, was always picked last for teams because I wasn't very coordinated either. Oh well. We still had fun! Thanks for the trip back in time. :0

Unknown said...

Well! I did spend an afternoon having x-rays of my skull when I decided to jump off the swing at the very height of the upswing. (And I remember throwing up those little orange aspirins we used to take...) It was a concussion. (Soooo, THAT'S what happened to me!!!)

I was pretty sporty and could run faster than most of the boys so I could usually be found playing kickball, one of the assorted "tags", or, my favorite, capture the flag!

I also loved the monkey bars.

Lisa @ The Preacher's Wife said...

1. Fighting over who got to be Princess Leah when we played Star Wars at recess. This one smart alec girl got her mom to fix her hair in those side buns every day so she would be the logical choice.

2. Since I was never Leah, I opted to be Wonder Woman and challenge all the other Leah wannabe's at seeing if they could jump higher than me out of the swings.

Fun times.

Sort of?

Angela Baylis said...

"I draw a circle on your back and line it with a...PUNCH". Do you know that one? We always had neighborhood games such as kickball, baseball, football. We had our own circus. We had 7 kids and our neighbors had 5 and our others had 3. There were a lot of kids running around since our parents all "made" us play outside! We weren't allowed to come in until the street lights came on! So much fun. We have all reunited on facebook! Thanks for bringing up these fun memories!
Love you, Fran!
Angie xoxo

Holly said...

Looks like a fun playground! I was always a bit of a chicken growing up, I was too scared to do things like swing upsidedown off the monkey bars! LOL!

Gayle @ thewestiecrew said...

I remember being on the spinny thingy... ummmm... merry-go-round (couldn't think of it!)
Anyway, it got going so fast and I probably weighed 10 lbs in the 5th grade so it FLUNG me off and I sprained my arm. HAAA!
Good times.

(Hey, my word verification is "cande".. AMEN!)

A Stone Gatherer said...

Oh this is going to sound sad and pathetic but I didn't fair well on the playground! All my memories not so good. Boo Hoo!

Unknown said...

i loved hopscotch and 4square!! and girl...*I* was the 4square queen! yuppers =D

the game that never made sense to me was "redlight - greenlight"

um. stop. go. stop. stop. go.


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