Colonial History

Teaching history through games is great fun. Introduce your students to colonial games by making and playing games such as:

ball and cup [ You can make your own ball and cup game by attaching a paper cup to the end of a stick. Tie a string to the stick. Use a staple gun to attach a ball to the end of the string. Swing the ball up and catch it in the cup. Children in Colonial days carved their own wooden cups with handles]
nine man norris
corn husk dolls
hoops [ You can play hoops with a hoola hoop and a stick]
tabletop nine pins
game of graces [You can use circles cut from cardboard and sticks or pencils.]
jacob's ladder
tops [Buy some wooden spinning tops and see who can make them spin the longest or farthest. Colonial children often made and played with spinning tops carved out of wood.]
quoits [Put a few sticks into the ground in your yard. Place them different distances from a marked point to stand. Tie a few piece of rope so that they form circles. Take turns throwing the rope hoops over the sticks. If the rope lands on a stick, then you get a point. You get more points for the sticks as they get farther away from you.]
draughts [Make a checkerboard and play checkers. You must only move one space forward at a time on your designated color. You can jump an opponent and take her piece. When you get a piece all the way across the board, it is then a "king" and can travel forward and backward. The person who successfully eliminates all of the opponent's checkers wins. In Colonial times the game pieces were carved out of wood.]
Scotch-hoppers

What do these games teach about American history? They teach culture and history as children learn what materials were available, the time consumed by projects, and they can draw connections to modern day games and materials and time management. They engage children as they learn about other children and present an opportunity to open discussion to other historical material.