The most popular among American children are various ball games. Many American children will participate in professional training in basketball, football, and flag football after school. I won’t elaborate on these here. I will introduce several new ways to play with ordinary balls. I learned these games gradually by following American teachers. For some games that I can’t find a suitable Chinese translation for, I will directly use their English names.
Four squares
A game that American children particularly love to play. I remember when I first arrived at the school where I teach, I found many four-cornered grids drawn on the playground. When I asked other teachers, it turned out that this is very popular among children – Four squares. The rules of the game are:
First, four children stand at the four corners. They are A, B, C, and D respectively, and each person has their own grid.
Starting with child A, bounce the ball into child B’s grid. The ball is only allowed to bounce once in child B’s grid. Then child B passes it to child C… and so on. It should be noted that you cannot catch the ball and then throw it. You must directly bounce the ball for it to be the correct way to play. The ball is only allowed to bounce once in each grid.
Dogeball American dodgeball
Each team has six players. Before the game starts, six balls will be placed on the center line of the court. Both sides stand at the baseline. After the game starts, they will try to grab the ball at the center line. The first one to grab the ball must retreat to the baseline before they can attack. Both sides throw the ball at each other to attack. If a person is hit by the ball and the ball then lands, the hit person must leave the court; if the attacking ball is caught, or if a person is hit but the ball is caught by a teammate and bounces away, then the person who threw the ball must leave the court. After leaving the court, they cannot attack.
Players can pick up balls that have fallen on the ground, but they cannot pick up balls on the opposite side of the center line. If the ball goes out of bounds, players or players who have already left the court can also go outside the court to pick up the ball. However, they cannot attack opponents outside the court, but opponents can attack players on the court who are picking up the ball outside. When there is no one on one side on the court, the game ends.
Kickball Children’s football
The rules of Kickball are the same as baseball rules, divided into first base, second base, and third base. The difference is that instead of hitting with a baseball bat, you kick with your foot. My school has a tradition. In the last few days of each school year, there will be a Kickball battle between all the teachers and the fifth-grade students. Before, because there were more female teachers in the school, it was actually the fifth-grade children who won every year. Only last year, when several male teachers joined, the situation miraculously reversed and the teacher team won. As someone who doesn’t know how to play baseball, I also joined in the fun. My highest achievement was successfully reaching first base.
Scoop Ball
This is also a toy that I saw for the first time when I came to the United States. In a pair, people throw the ball to each other and then catch it.
The team play method is: Divide the students into four teams. Each team sends a child to hold the game handle, catch a ball, and run a round trip while keeping the ball from falling.
Tetherball Rope ball
This game was actually taught to me by my students. The rules of the game are: There is a ball hanging on a pole. Two children compete. After a child hits the ball, the ball will rotate many times around the pole. The other child has to try to hit the ball in the other direction and make it rotate. If the rope on a certain line runs out of rotations, then the child who successfully makes the rotations wins the game.
