I used to love recess. I went to a small K-8 school growing up. There were about 160 students total. My class hovered at about 21 students. 19 of those kids went to school with me all the way from kindergarten to 8th grade. Needless to say, we were close. And thankfully for the most part we got along. (Ok, I spent one year coming home crying after school, but for the story's sake let's ignore that.)
We had plenty of recess time each day. We played basketball, football, kickball, dodgeball, and jsut about any other sport we could get our hands on the equipment for. But I think my favorite game we played was Sinissippi Trails. The game was a winter game, when it was way too cold and snowy to play anything else. Playing on the snow mounds and starting snowball fights were good ways to get in trouble, so we had to find some other way to entertain ourselves. I wish I could remember who's brilliant idea it was to do this, but I can't.
The game was basically a tripped out version of tag. The first thing we had to do each season was create a course. You'd need a big field and about 4 inches of snow. The group of us would meet behind the big snow mounds at the end of the parking lot. We'd pack down a patch of snow by trampling it essentially. This would be home base. Then we'd all line up single file behind one of the guys. He would lead us around like a big conga line creating a packed down path through the snow. We'd circle back and create multiple paths that branched off the main loop. At about 4 locations on this path we'd create small little areas called "safety zones." They acted like mini-home bases. We were really careful to only make the path about one and half people-widths. Just big enough so you could run comfortably. This process usually took about 2 days worth of recess. Then the real fun began.
After that, it was your basic tag game, with a home base, and a few minor temporary safety spots. And the challenge of not messing up the course. You had to stay on the path. You took one step off and you were penalized. If you fell out or "made a mess" of the course, you automatically became it. If you did it again, you sat out the rest of recess. We were a bit brutal, but that was the way we played. You can't play on a course if you couldn't see where it is. You wouldn't believe how fast you can run when you know the course well.
We'd play until we couldn't tell the course any more because it was just a muddy mess. If we got a substantial amount of snow or it was really windy, we'd re-run the course. I'd forgotten how much I loved playing this game. We had so much fun just running ourselves in circles. If only I could go back to life being that simple.
We had plenty of recess time each day. We played basketball, football, kickball, dodgeball, and jsut about any other sport we could get our hands on the equipment for. But I think my favorite game we played was Sinissippi Trails. The game was a winter game, when it was way too cold and snowy to play anything else. Playing on the snow mounds and starting snowball fights were good ways to get in trouble, so we had to find some other way to entertain ourselves. I wish I could remember who's brilliant idea it was to do this, but I can't.
The game was basically a tripped out version of tag. The first thing we had to do each season was create a course. You'd need a big field and about 4 inches of snow. The group of us would meet behind the big snow mounds at the end of the parking lot. We'd pack down a patch of snow by trampling it essentially. This would be home base. Then we'd all line up single file behind one of the guys. He would lead us around like a big conga line creating a packed down path through the snow. We'd circle back and create multiple paths that branched off the main loop. At about 4 locations on this path we'd create small little areas called "safety zones." They acted like mini-home bases. We were really careful to only make the path about one and half people-widths. Just big enough so you could run comfortably. This process usually took about 2 days worth of recess. Then the real fun began.
After that, it was your basic tag game, with a home base, and a few minor temporary safety spots. And the challenge of not messing up the course. You had to stay on the path. You took one step off and you were penalized. If you fell out or "made a mess" of the course, you automatically became it. If you did it again, you sat out the rest of recess. We were a bit brutal, but that was the way we played. You can't play on a course if you couldn't see where it is. You wouldn't believe how fast you can run when you know the course well.
We'd play until we couldn't tell the course any more because it was just a muddy mess. If we got a substantial amount of snow or it was really windy, we'd re-run the course. I'd forgotten how much I loved playing this game. We had so much fun just running ourselves in circles. If only I could go back to life being that simple.
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