Bring back playtime

By SARAH HARRIS, Daily Mail

Last updated at 13:34 13 July 2005


Once the playground rang to the carefree sounds of children skipping, playing hopscotch and rolling marbles.

These days you are more likely to hear the quiet blip of hand-held computer games.

Or the shouts of youngsters re-enacting their favourite TV shows.

But those who regret the passing of traditional children's games are fighting back.

And they have enlisted a team of dinner ladies to show how much fun you can have with French elastic, jacks and What's the Time, Mr Wolf?

Children's Links, a charity based in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, has devised a pack of 40 cards featuring 80 old-fashioned games.

Using the cards for inspiration (and to trigger those childhood memories), a team of dinner ladies in six primary schools in Lincolnshire taught children how to have fun the old-fashioned way.

Success

The idea was so successful it is to be introduced in all 250 primary schools across the county.

"We found that children just don't know all these games that lots of the older generation used to play," said Karen Wilkinson, a manager at the charity.

"They are often watching television and videos and playing with PlayStations. They are losing the art of playing the traditional games, which is a shame.

"There are a lot of skills that can be learnt from playing them. They learn how to share and play together and work as a team. The games also help to reduce obesity through running around."

From September, around 1,000 dinner ladies will receive training in the art of playing old-fashioned games. As well as the pack of cards, each school will receive skipping ropes, French elastic and jacks.

The schools claim the games provide more than just fun. "Teachers were saying that children coming back after the lunch hour were less hyper and able to settle down to work quicker," said Mrs Wilkinson.

"Play time at these schools is really fun now. Schools are so curriculum focused there is no time for them to play traditional games like they used to."

   

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