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Saturday, June 21, 2014

Colonial Chidren's Games - Guest Post by 12-Year-Old Yorktown Victory Center Volunteer


Playing Shut the Box at Yorktown Victory Center

Guest Post by 12-year-old Yorktown Victory Center Volunteer

Colonial Games

In the summer of 2013, I  began playing certain colonial games because I went through training at Yorktown Victory Center boot camp for volunteers. The training is where volunteers come in for three days and on the third day there are two shifts, one at 10:00 and one at 11:30.  Now I will describe the games that I might play as a volunteer to entertain visitors.

Fox and Geese: The game of Fox and Geese was a very popular colonial board game with marbles in which the geese would try to trap the fox and the fox tried to eat all the geese. Goal of the game, which is a two player game, is either to trap the fox (red or brown marble) or eat all the geese (white marbles.)  To trap the fox you have to corner it by penning it in with geese. Or you can surround it with the geese.  Here is a link to a Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_games

Shut the Box (Clark now owns a nice version of this game, purchased from the museum store-see picture above): Originally “Shut the Box” was a Norman game played by sailors. We were taught this game, also, which colonial children enjoyed and it is a game for all ages.  The game has two dice which are rolled, there is a box frame with 9 wooden pieces that flip on a dowel. The point of the game is to have the least points or numbers because that means the closer you are to shutting the box.  Here is a link to a Wiki page about the game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_the_Box
Please note there are different versions of the game.

Mancala is another popular game.
Mancala game


Outdoor games

Rolling the hoop: You have a stick and a hoop and you try to hit the hoop as many times as you can to move the hoop. The object is to make it roll. And making it roll fast is helpful because it makes the hoop go straighter, faster, and easier to control. 
9 Pins colonial game

Nine pins: You try to knock down all the pins but the middle pin.  The ball is fairly small, made of wood, and you roll it from as far back as you think necessary.  It is possibly a co-ed sport but more likely a boy sport.

Here’s a nice link to more Colonial Children’s Games http://www.pencaderheritage.org/main/teachtool/games.pdf

Bio: Our guest is a middle school student who loves history. He just obtained his second perfect 600 score in History on this SOL exams at school!  This is his first guest post on CQ!  He lives in the historic triangle of Virginia and his mother thinks he is totally awesome. He is a youth volunteer at the Yorktown Victory Center which is under major construction to become the AMERICAN REVOLUTION MUSEUM AT YORKTOWN.


19 comments:

  1. Awesome job, dear Guest Poster! thanks so much for sharing with our CQ readers!

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    1. your welcome ,from the guest poster.

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  2. Great post, Clark! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

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    1. Your welcome and who is Clark , from the GP or the guest poster.

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  3. Great post, Clark! Since I teach elementary school, I have always been interested in earlier period games like this. You did a wonderful job telling about the games. I enjoyed your blog post and hope you will be able to write more of them. Keep up the GREAT work!!
    susanlulu@yahoo.com

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    1. Well you know it's me and I will keep up the good work , from Clark aka the guest poster.

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  4. Fanstastic post, Clark! I found the games you described very interesting and also helpful. Perhaps I'll have children in my stories play some of these games sometime thanks to your hands on training. Congratulations on your perfect scores in history on your SOLs! Thank you for doing a guest post at Colonial Quills. Please come back another time!

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    1. Thank you I am glad that I was helpful. Clark

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  5. Great post Clark! You look so handsome in the photo. The games look like fun. Great job!!

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  6. Great job Clark. Thanks for posting this here for us to enjoy. These games sound good. Maxie

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    1. hello fellow Anonymous person aka Maxie I am glad that you enjoyed .Clark

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  7. What a great post! This will be helpful in my novel I'm working on now. We have "Shut the Box" at our house. We play it so much, we keep it out and on the fireplace hearth so we can get to it easily. Fantastic that you went through the training at Williamsburg. I'm hoping to visit Williamsburg soon after I retire from my fulltime job, which will be on my birthday October 16. I want to see their demonstration of flax growing and weaving. Thanks again for an interesting post. And Huzzah! for your history grade. :-)

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    1. Oh, I can't wait to see you, Susan!!! You will have to meet up with us and spend time like Carla did when he was here!

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    2. shut the box was my favorite and remember do not drop the game in the fire if you do I warned you.Clark

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  8. What fun games, we were recently at a Pioneer fort in Utah and got a button game there which my grandkids fought over. Such fun to explore this sort of thing. I think it's a great change from computer type games!

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    1. I hope your grand kids don't immediately get ride of it very soon but then again computer games are more fun. Clark

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  9. Congratulations Clark on doing so well on your history SOL exam. And thank you for such an interesting post.

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  10. Great job, Clark :). I enjoyed learning about Colonial games!

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  11. Thanks for the interesting post, Clark, and congrats on those test scores!! Hope you have the opportunity to do future posts here on Colonial Quills!!

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