unprotected part of the opponents' court or try in other ways to place
them at a disadvantage. The service changes to opposite side when the
serving side:
1. Allows the ball to touch the floor.
2. Knocks it out of bounds.
3. Fails to return it to the opponents.
4. The ball hits the net during the service.
5. A served ball falls outside the opponents' court.
6. A player on the serving side touches the net at any time.
Score. The game consists of twenty-one points--only the serving side
scores.
One point is scored when:
1. A good serve is unreturned.
2. Any time when the opponents fail to return the ball which is in
play.
3. When the receiving side touches the net.
(Should the serving side fail to return a ball to the opponents' court,
they are put out. The serve passes to the opponents and no score is
made.)
Scoring on Fouls.
1. Touching the net by a player on the receiving side allows the
serving side one point.
2. A ball sent under the net counts one for the opposing side.
3. If the ball strikes any object outside the court and bounds
back, although it is still in play, it counts one for the opposing
side. A ball sent out of bounds in returning a service scores one
point for the opposing team. One point is scored by the opponents
whenever a player catches the ball or holds it for even an instant.
Group Games for Adults
CHARIOT RELAY
Players line up at one end of the room. Count off by threes. Each group
joins hands, and on the command "Go!" they run to the other end of the
hall and return without letting go of hands. The first group back wins.
HURDLE RACE
Place several objects at different distances. Contestants race, jumping
over them.
SONG CONTEST
Song contestants are supplied with pencil and paper. Standing on one
foot, each writes two lines of a patriotic song. One finishing first
wins.
Contestants are supplied with paper and crayon, and asked to draw a
picture representing some popular song. The one whose drawing is the
best representation wins the prize.
LAUGHING RELAY
Line up players in twos. Partners face and march backwards four steps.
Leaders draw for first chance. One side named Blues, other Reds. If
"Blues" have first chance, they try for the space of thirty seconds to
make the "Reds" laugh. All "Reds" found laughing are recruited to the
other side. Three turns constitute a game. The side having most
recruits at the finish wins.
TELEGRAMS
Give each player a pencil and paper. Ask each to write the name of the
city (town or state) in which he was born. Then ask each to separate
the letters in the name of his birthplace and, using each letter as the
initial of a word, to compose a telegram. Some interesting combinations
are the result.
WHIRLWIND
This is an old English game. Arrange as many chairs as there are
players in a circle. All the players but one are seated. This odd
player takes his position in the center of the circle. His object is to
take the vacant chair, but this the others prevent by hastily moving up
(to right or left, as the movements of the person standing indicate) so
as to fill the empty seat whenever the standing player approaches it.
In this manner, the vacancy is kept at the point farthest from him, and
unless he is agile, the player cannot capture it.
THE LAUGHING GAME
Players form a circle. The first player starts with the word "ha," the
second says "ha, ha," the third "ha, ha, ha," and so on, each one in
turn adding one more ha than has been made by his neighbor. In each
case, the ha ha's must be made without laughing, which is almost an
impossibility. Before the circuit has been completed the entire circle
is in peals of laughter. Each one guilty of laughing drops out of the
game. The one remaining longest without laughing wins.
GAME OF OPPOSITE
Players stand in a circle. An extra player stands in the center,
holding in his hands as many pieces of tape as there are players in the
circle. The tape (or ribbons) are of two colors, red and blue. The
opposite ends of each tape are held in the hands of a player. When the
leader says "Reds let go," "Blues, hold on," the blues will let go,
always doing just the opposite of the command given to be obeyed.
Commands should be given rapidly and in military tone. When word for
"all to hold on" is given the entire circle lets go, and so on.
MUSICAL CIRCLE
All players sit in a circle. One in the centre is the leader. To each
one is assigned some musical instrument, which he must play. The leader
waves his baton, but from time to time he will quickly begin to
pantomime the instrument of someone in the circle. For instance, he
plays the cornet, and as soon as he does this, the one to whom the
cornet was assigned immediately sits back with folded hands until the
leader goes back to his baton. Should a player fail to remark that the
leader has taken his instrument he is subject to forfeit.
MEMORY TEST
A tray piled high with all sorts of objects, as diverse as possible in
character is brought into the room. The players are given one minute in
which to take a rapid survey of same. At the end of that period the
tray is taken away and the players, with pencil and paper (previously
supplied them) write down the names of as many of the articles as they
can remember. The one whose list is largest and most correct is the
winner.
FINDING A PARTNER
An odd number of players participate. At a signal (preferably a musical
accompaniment), the players, fly or skip promiscuously about the room.
When the music stops each player attempts to stand back to back with a
partner. The one left without a partner, as the game proceeds, tries to
be successful the next time.
NOSE AND TOE TAG
This game is played like ordinary tag, with the exception that no one
can be tagged who has his right hand on his toes and left hand on his
nose.
SPIRITS MOVE
A leader and his accomplice are required in this game. The one
illustrating the game leaves the room. His accomplice passes among the
players and stopping before one of the number and with hands
outstretched says, "Spirits Move." The leader from without replies "Let
them move." Again the accomplice passes among the number and steps in
front of another player, saying, as before, with hands outstretched,
"Spirits Move." Again the reply from his accomplice, "Let them move."
He proceeds in this manner until finally he takes his stand before
another one of the group saying "Spirits Move and Rest Upon." The
leader from without completes the sentence by adding the name of the
person over whose head the hands are extended.
The trick is simply this: The one over whose head the accomplice's
hands rest is the one who spoke last before the leader retired from the
room.
HANDS OVER HEAD
A leader and his accomplice are necessary to this mystifying game. The
leader leaves the room while his accomplice passes around among the
players, occasionally stopping in front of one of them, and with hands
extending over the player's head says. "Hands Over Head." The leader
answers from without "Hands Over Head." He continues around the circle
in like manner until finally he stops in front of a player and with
hands extended says "Hands Over Head and Rest Upon" whereupon the
leader answers "Hands Over Head and Rest upon (John Smith)" naming the
person over whom the hands are extended.
The trick: The accomplice places his hands over the head of the person
before whom he has been standing at the time the leader withdraws from
the room.
BOTTLES
Any number of couples may compete in this game. Arrange two files of
Indian clubs, large bottles or ten pins, five in a file, at a distance
of four feet apart with an aisle of six feet between files. Each couple
is comprised of a man and woman. The man is blindfolded and to his
wrists are attached streamers or reins about three feet long. The
woman, at a given signal guides her partner by means of these reins on
and around each bottle in the first file, returning in like manner by
the second file.
The team succeeding in making the circuit without overturning any of
the bottles wins.
In no way is the driver permitted to suggest direction except by
driving with the reins.
RELAY SPELLING RACE
This game is particularly interesting if the men and women of the party
compete. For each team a pronouncer is chosen who takes his place
directly to the right of the blackboard immediately in front of his
team, who are standing in file formation, and at a distance of about
fifteen feet from the blackboard.
Each pronouncer is supplied with a list of words previously agreed upon
between themselves, and consisting of words commonly used but
frequently misspelled, as necessary, parallel, embarrass, harass, etc.
At a given signal the first contestant leaves his place in the file,
runs to the board and as the pronouncer announces the first word to
him, proceeds to write it on the board, quickly, but legibly, turns and
runs to the end of the file, tagging as he does so the second player in
his file. The second contestant in turn, runs to the board, writes the
word pronounced to him and in like manner returns to the end of the
file, tagging as he does so the third contestant. No contestant except
the first leaves his place until tagged by the returning contestant.
With ten contestants to a file, count finishing first as equal to two
misspelled words at first, later to one misspelled word. The side
finishing first is thereafter entitled to consider 2 (or 1) misspelled
words as correctly spelled in the final count.
SUGGESTION FOR CONDUCTING PLAY LEADERS' TRAINING CLASS
MELVIN W. SHEPPARD
Community Service, Inc., One Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.
THE PURPOSE
The purpose of play leaders' training classes is to develop volunteer
leaders who will carry on recreational program in various schools,
churches and industrial plants, and later on who will organize play
groups on vacant lots in home vicinities. This will lead to
neighborhood activity. As the schools progress those leaders who
display more initiative than the others should be noted as a desirable
source from which paid recreational leaders may be drawn by the city
recreational commission and other agencies.
PROCEDURE
Before starting the class, confer with superintendents of schools,
churches, and industrial leaders, and send to all institutions in the
city, which are likely to be interested, invitations to send delegates
to the proposed class. After organization of the class there should be
some classification of its members so that the most efficient work may
be done.
It is desirable in nearly every case that there be separate classes for
white leaders and colored leaders in order that there may be the utmost
freedom of expression and the least hindrance to the enthusiastic
participation in the games.
THE COURSE
Experience shows that ten lessons of one hour's duration each will be
sufficient in which to present a total of thirty games with such
directions and general suggestions as will enable the leaders to take
the games taught back to their organizations.
During the first few lessons, the time should be taken up entirely with
the teaching of games and toward the end of the course train all
students to act as leaders in turn. This brings out initiative and
enables the instructor to prepare tentative lists of the most efficient
leaders. Towards the end of the course, the students should do
practically all of the game-leading. By dividing them into groups, each
under a leader, the instructor can increase his own efficiency and help
more specifically the individual members of the class.
RECOGNITION FOR ATTENDANCE
If the instructor deems it advisable, a certificate of attendance
testifying to the interest shown by the student may be presented at the
end of the course. It should, however, be made plain that this
certificate does not indicate that the student is an expert playground
director. An expert playground director is one who not only can direct
the games on the playground, but also by his influence makes the
playground an asset to the neighborhood instead of a liability.
Unless a book on games is provided as a guide to the course, each
student should receive at each lesson a mimeographed copy of the
direction for the games taught at that class, to become a part of his
permanent equipment.
Neighborhood organizations, particularly rural schools and vacant lots,
can be put in shape for playgrounds through simple and cheap athletic
equipment such as volley balls and net, basket balls, quoits,
playground balls and bats, medicine balls, which can be purchased at a
very reasonable price and will answer all purposes until more elaborate
equipment can be obtained.
End of Project Gutenberg's Games and Play for School Morale, by Various