Games

Battleship It’s a game for two players. They receive two pieces of paper each. On both paper pieces you need to draw a grid The grids are typically square – usually 10×10 – and the individual squares in the grid are identified by letter and number, for example (A-J; 1-10). On one grid the player arranges ships and records the shots by the opponent. On the other grid the player records his/her own shots. Each ship occupies a number of consecutive squares on the grid, arranged either horizontally or vertically. The number of squares for each ship is determined by the type of the ship. The ships cannot overlap or touch each other even at corners, only one ship can occupy any given square in the grid. The types and numbers of ships are the same for each player. These may vary depending on the rules. The ships can be: -1 ship 4squares 2 ships 3squares 3 ships 2squares 4 ships 1square After the ships have been drawn, each player takes turn to announce a target square in the opponent's grid which is to be shot at. The opponent tells whether or not the square is occupied by a ship, and if it is a "hit" they mark this on their own primary grid. The attacking player notes the hit or miss on their own "tracking" grid, in order to build up a picture of the opponent's fleet. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship is sunk, and the ship's owner announces this; he says "You sank my battleship!". If all of a player's ships have been sunk, the game is over and their opponent wins.

Countries-cities game The number of players are unlimited. Each player receives a piece of paper and draws a table on it. At the top of each column they write various categories: countries, cities, rivers, animals, lakes, mountains, plants, etc. The game begins when one of the players says “stop” while the other player names the letters of the alphabet in his mind. In this way players choose the beginning letter for words in each category. (countries, rivers, etc.) Each player writes the words secretly. After filling the columns the players are given points: -20 points gets a player when any others haven’t got the correct word or they haven’t got any words. 10 points if all the players have correct words but you have a unique one 5 points if every player has a correct word but someone has the same as you, 0 points if you haven’t got a word or the word is incorrect. The winner is the player who gets the highest score at the end of the game.

Klasy The participant starts by throwing a rock into the field with name "1" - then she/he jumps with one leg and picks the rock up; continue jumping on the same one leg through all the sections keeping the balance, making sure that the leg does not touch the line. If the participant would make this fault - the next person starts and she/he need to repeat it after waiting for her/his tour again. After a participant finish a tour succesfully, she/he can continue by throwing the rock into the field number "2" and repeating the same thing until she/he succesfully finish all 6 rounds. The first one who finishes the all rounds wins. The game can be modified - if the paricipant would throw the rock in the halfcircle niebo (heaven) instead of section "3" he would have one extra round, if he would throw the ball into pieklo (hell) instead of "6" he would lose one round. To play the first two games: klasy and chłopek one need just a bit of the pavement or sidewalk somewhere out of the way, a piece of chalk and a small rock or stone or a shoe polish box filled with sand. This rectangual game is called klasy, which can be translated as sections or classes.

Chłopek The game is similar than the previous one - the participant jumps on one leg through the blocks "1", "2", "3", then she/he may rest by putting her/his both legs on the pavement - the left on number "4" and the right on "5", then jumps on "6" and "7" + "8" with both legs, then she/he flips the legs turning 180 degrees and repeats it again. There are some variations of these two games - the participant can jump in more difficult versions with only left leg or with the crossed legs. The shape of the figure resembles a boy, so the name is chłopek - in literal translation it means farmer boy.

Zośka Boys play with the "ball" called "zośka" which is either a sack full of grain or sand, or it has a small rock on one site and a piece of wool on the other. Each boy stands inside one circle ~1 m radius. Boys throw the ball by use of every part of the body except hands out of the circle - the most used parts are usually feet and knees. The fault is if: · the ball touches the pavement inside your circle - you need to manoeuvre so that you would either throw the ball out or hold it on the top of your shoe for instance. · you would cross your circle playing with the ball · you would throw the ball so that it would not reach the circle of the other boy It is possible to play Zośka in different ways. You can play it alone. It’s the art of throwing zośka up and catch with the top of your foot. You can play it with your friend or friends. In that case you can compete who can toss it more times or standing in a circle just toss it to each other so that it doesn’t fall on the ground. The player who let zośka fall on the ground goes out of the game. The last one who stays in the circle is the winner. If we have a sports field at our disposal we can arrange a mini pitch, mark two goals and jump towards the opponent’s goal tossing zośka. Being close to the goal we kick zośka to score a goal. Zośka is the abbreviation of the name Sophie, in Polish Zofia.

Krowy In the game we choose a person (called a cow) who will chase other players. Why cow? This person stands with outstretched hands to the sides and extends the fingers on each hand. Other players catch „the cow” for fingers (one player holds one finger) - it’s „udders”. Then, the players ask the cow: „what colour milk does a give?”. The cow names different colours. The players still hold her fingers and keep asking the same question until the cow says: „white!”. It gives the signal to escape. All the players let the cow’s fingers and run away. Everyone who is touched stays motionless with his legs apart. The player who stands still can be „rescued” if another player crawls between his legs. The game continues until the cow catches al the runners. At the end of the game the next cow is chosen. It’s either the one who is the last running or the one who lets out a finger when the colour is other than white.

Ciupy In this game you toss one stone up and gather the rest from the ground at the same time with one hand. At the beginning we scatter stones on the floor. We choose one of them, toss it up, catch it and collect one of the rest scattered on the floor at the same time with the same hand! Having had two stones in your hand, toss one of them and collect another (third) from the ground. Repeat the process until you catch all five stones in one hand. The next step is to catch pairs. This time, however, while the tossed stone is in the air we just move the pebbles from the ground closer to each other and catch the stone that is in the air. Only then we toss stone again, catch it and collect two stones from the ground at the same time. We continue the same activity until you gather all the stones. Keep all the stones in your hand and toss up just one! Then catch analogy threes, and finally all four. The last and most difficult step is tossing and catching the stone from the back of the hand: stretch the arm and the fingers front of you, put the stones on the back of the hand,, throw them up and catch with the same hand. Of course, you don’t have a countless number of trials - if you do not catch, the turn is taken over by another player.

Cymbergaj To play this game we can use an empty table or draw a small football rectangle field with dimensions 100cm x 70cm. Next we mark goals on the opposite, shorter sides of our football field. We prepare two coins (our footballers) of the same size and smaller one. This will be our ball. We put the ball in the middle of the field and the footballers at the opposite sides. The first player must hit with a comb his coin- footballer to bounce and move the ball. The players take turns hitting the ball. The player who scores a goal gets one point. Then we move the ball and the footballers in the middle of the pitch again and the play starts again. We continue playing until we get established earlier number of points.

Bottle Caps To play bottle caps we have to draw the boarders of the path. The width of the path depends on the number of participants. We mark the starting line and the finishing line. Between them the path can turn off, it is possible to make embankments and hills of sand. We can put some obstacles made of the branches, stones or bodies of water (the hole in the earth secured with the foil and filled up with water or the ordinary puddle). We put the bottle caps at the start, one beside the other with outer side on the ground. The players take turns to move the caps forward clicking with fingers into the side of the cap. In this way the players race to the finish line. If the cap crosses the boarder line of the track the owner loses his turn. The winner is the player whose bottle cap gets to the finish line as the first.

Rat One of the participants holds one end of a skipping rope low above the ground and revolves turning around his own axis. Other participants stand in the circle and jump over the rope. The one who fails to jump, replaces the person from the middle and takes over twirling the skipping rope.

The Old Bear The Old Bear (Polish text is in italics) Children choose one person as a bear. The bear is sitting in the middle of the circle pretending that he is asleep and it is snoring loudly. The children are walking in a circle and sing: song Old bear is sleeping deeply, Stary niedźwiedź mocno spi, Old bear is sleeping deeply, Stary niedźwiedź mocno spi, We’re walking on our tiptoes as we're afraid of him, Na palcach chodzimy, bo się go boimy When he'd wake up he would eat us! Jak się zbudzi to nas zje, When he'd wake up he would eat us. Jak się zbudzi to nas zje. recitation Children are standing round in the circle and recite. The first hour (passed) - the bear sleeps Pierwsza godzina - niedźwiedź spi, The second hour (passed)- the bear snores Druga godzina - niedźwiedź chrapie, The third hour - the bear wakes up and he's catching us!!! Trzecia godzina - niedźwiedź budzi sie i łapie!!! Then the person in the middle pretending to be a bear stands up and tries to catch somebody while children break a circle and run away trying to escape; the next caught person is a new bear and the play repeats!