Voting Day
Cat & Rat
Water Sprite
Ball Chase


Voting Day

(for 7 or more players)

One child is born President. All the other children must look at him. The children are divided into two groups. One group is painted white. The other black. The President remains unpainted. The white children & the black children each form into circles.

The President must run around one circle & touch each child. As he runs around the white-children circle the black-children circle asks in unison "What day is it?" The black children then yell out "Voting Day!" "Voting Day"

After the President has finished touching all the white-children he must do the same to the circle of black children. Then the white children ask in unison "Who do you vote for?" And the black children yell out "Lot's Wife!" "Lot's Wife!"


Cat & Rat

(for 10 or more players)

One child is the Cat. Another is the Rat. The other children join hands & form a circle. They let the Rat inside the circle. At a given signal the Cat tries to catch the Rat. The players in the circle assist the Rat by letting him in & out, but the Cat does not belong in the circle. When the Cat catches the Rat it makes the children angry. No child likes the Cat. But one child must be the Cat.


Water Sprite
(for 9 players)

One child is the Water Sprite & stands in the center of the playing space. The children are divided into two equal groups, each standing behind its line at one end of the playing space. The Water Sprite is terrible & feared by all the children. The Water Sprite calls the name of one of the children & that child shrivels up into a small glass of river water. The other children run to be the first to drink the glass of river water.

The game ends when there is only one child left. The Water Sprite calls his name but he does not shrivel into a small glass of river water. The sun above the playing space seems larger then, more looming. The teachers come & mop up all the mess.


Ball Chase
(for 4 or more players)

For this game, a row of red caps may be set against a wall or a fence; a series of holes may be dug in the ground; a number of circles may be drawn; a line of hoops may be used; a line of fighter pilots may lead from the sacristy to the altar; a stack of books may catch fire in the basement; a circle of priests may cough up wet flags; a group of boys may hide in the coat closet; a set of cars may crash together in the middle of the intersection; a troupe of dancers may be sent in to rescue them; a flock of birds may dive bomb the stained glass window; a pocketful of change may spill over the intersection; a child may drop her popsicle in the middle of the sun-hot street.

There may be a red ball; there may be a bird you cannot see with an extraordinarily loud song; there may be a gown, blouse or shirt hanging from the iron gate; each child may be happy, morose or distracted; there may be many children circling a dry well; there may be one child at the top of a dead elm tree; there may be songs, lit candles in the elbows of the branches, or a pile of gasoline-soaked rags in the corner of the garage; there may be lines of sugar down the playground dirt; there may be piles of toy trucks in a freshly dug pit; there may be sunlight, so much sunlight every child must squint, must hold her hands up to the sun to block the light out, must step forward without being able to see.