I sat with a brother-in-law on our verandah the other day while my children played. As we watched them banging, sliding, and throwing bottles in absolute delight, I asked him: “Who needs toys?!” We then started reminiscing about how we grew up making our own toys. We made balls from old juice boxes stuffed with random plastic. In fact, there are many old time Jamaican games you can pass on to your child!
Here are a few of them!
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Old Time Jamaican Games You Can Pass on to Your Child
1. Old Time Bat-and-Ball Game in Jamaica
One of the best Jamaican games you can pass on to your child is old time bat-and-ball, a very minimalist variant of the American game of baseball. But here’s the twist – you don’t need a “ball” or bat at all (well, not the store-bought one, anyway).
Benefits of this old time Jamaican game include:
- Physical activity coming from the swinging of the hands to throw and hit the ball, and running to the different bases, which are essential for healthy bones, strong muscles and optimal cardiothoracic function.
- Social skills such as teamwork, conflict resolution, waiting your turn and playing fairly
- Even before the game begins, your children can experience other benefits such as creativity and problem-solving as they build the ball.
- As a parent, you save on money since none of the components for this game need your financial input!
How to Play Jamaican Bat-and-Ball
Bat-and-ball is played using an old juice box stuffed with old plastic, newspaper or other scrap paper. If a ball could be afforded it was typically one of these tennis balls:
The bat was simply the child’s hand.
There would be two teams consisting of any number of players, but the teams had to be equal. If there was an extra child, we would have that child play on both teams (called the “Jockey pon two side”).
Children would try to outrun the ball to reach one of the bases, which in reality worked out to be a tree, building, rock or just a marked area on the ground.
2. Another Old Time Jamaican Game to Pass on to Your Child is Skipping
Growing up, there were some skipping ropes that were storebought among the privileged few.
But most times the skipping ropes were pulled from vines in the bushes around our homes. We called them “wiss”. They worked very well, cost us nothing and were biodegradable! Plus, we could adjust them to any length we desired.
Among the popular skipping games and songs were:
- Cinderella, Cinderella dressed in yellow
- Mother, mother I am sick
- One-two-three aunty Lulu
- Pound, shilling and pence
(Which one can you recall? Do you remember all the words?)
3. Hopscotch is a Good Old Time Jamaican Game for Children
For the game of hopscotch, children most often used chalk to draw the squares on the ground.
Many times, however, I remember using crushed hibiscus leaves as a kind of green “chalk” to mark the lines for playing hopscotch.
Again, this was free and completely natural.
The game of hopscotch teaches children social skills, gross motor skills, counting and reasoning skills.
4. Dandy Shandy is One of my Favourite Traditional Jamaican Games
There might be a debate as to whether or not Dandy Shandy is the same as Sighting, but the two games bear the same essence: someone is throwing a ball (which, once again is nothing but a stuffed juice box) at you and you need to dodge it while keeping within the borders!
The game could be played with two persons on either side and the crowd of children in the middle. Or it can involve a down-sized version where one person aims at the children in the middle, with a wall on the other end.
And by the way, the stuffed juice box to be used for Sighting was traditionally (and thankfully) knocked in on the corners to spare us from the piercing pain if we did get a knock from it.
The end point of Dandy Shandy is to be the last one left in the middle who gets knocked by the ball.
I have seen the best of both worlds – I knew some swift throwers, but I also knew some very nimble gymnasts who could contort themselves and slide and split to avoid getting hit. (I wasn’t one of them. lol)
5. Chinese Skipping is a Unique Old Time Jamaican Game for Your Child
I don’t know if what we call Chinese skipping in Jamaica has anything to do with our Chinese immigrants from long ago but that is what we call it to this day.
The game involves two persons as the anchors for the Chinese skipping rope, and a third person who would challenge the rope. The rope was skillfully built from individual elastic bands looped together.
At the ankle level, we would jump in and out of the rope then try to land on the two sides of the rope one foot on either side.
That was the easy part. You would have to repeat that performance as the rope was shifted all the way up to the neck, and in some parts of Jamaica, even to the upheld fingertips. Suffice it to say it wasn’t my favourite, but you might have some extremely flexible children who would love the challenge.
A word of caution though – for the sake of modesty, I would advise having your girls wear leggings or pants for this game.
Best Traditional Jamaican Games You Can Pass on to Your Child
Nowadays, my children stack old juice boxes to make towers and use a folded shirt (courtesy of me, of course) as their ball to hit down the towers. A kind of bowling game – sort of🤔🤭. And you know what? They (actually, we) have loads of fun, and I don’t need to spend money on extra store-bought toys. Plus, if you add to the mix how we’re recycling our stuff, it’s a win-win-win👍🏽.
Don’t get me wrong: we (especially their grandparents!) buy toys and games for them. I’m actually preparing a mental list of some toys I want to purchase for my children in the near future, like these jigsaw puzzles!
Jigsaw puzzles are timeless classics for children! And you can even personalise some of them!
But even with all these store-bought toys around, I’ll still leave my children to be as creative, resourceful and ingenious as they can be in designing their own toys!
Watch these videos of children at play…I promise you’ll smile!
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