Opunake Primary School

We enjoyed our Traditional Games Day. All the teachers organised an activity that children have played in the school yards since the olden days. The games included four square, roll the hoop, egg and spoon races, knuckle bones, marbles and tiddlywinks. The time went by quickly and everyone was involved in the games, we had a great time. Check out our photos below.

Four Square

Each player stands in one of the four squares.

To start the game, the player in square four serves the ball by bouncing it in their square once and then hitting it towards one of the other squares. The receiving player then hits the ball to any other player in one of the other squares.

The ball must bounce in another player's square, and they must hit it to another player before it bounces a second time.

A player may hit the ball before it bounces, if they choose to do so.

If a player hits the ball so that it misses another player's square, or fails to hit the ball before the second bounce after it has landed in their square, they are "out".

When a player is out, the other players move up to take their place, and that player moves to the last square, or to the end of the line, if there are more than four players.

The object of the game is to move up to and hold the server's position.

Hoop Rolling

Hoop rolling, also called hoop trundling, is both a sport and a child's game in which a large hoop is rolled along the ground, generally by means of an implement wielded by the player. The aim of the game is to keep the hoop upright for long periods of time or to do various tricks.

Egg and Spoon Race

An egg-and-spoon race is a sporting event in which participants must balance an egg or similarly shaped item upon a spoon and race with it to the finishing line. At many primary schools an egg-and-spoon race is staged as part of the annual sports day, alongside other events such as the sack races and the three legged races. 

Knuckle Bones

Knucklebones, or Jacks, is a game of very ancient origin, played with usually five small objects, originally the "knucklebones" (actually the astragalus: a bone in the ankle, or hock) of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways. The simplest consists in tossing up one stone, the jack, and picking up one or more from the table while it is in the air; and so on until all five stones have been picked up. 

Tiddlywinks

Tiddlywinks is an indoor game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called "winks", and a pot, which is the target. Players use a "squidger": a disk (nowadays made of plastic) used to propel a wink into flight by pressing down on the edge of a wink, thereby flicking it into the air. The objective of the game is to score points by sending your own winks into the pot.