What you need
- A wide, varied space, urban or rural, anything works. A playground is ideal.
- At least two people
That’s it.
What you need to do
- One person is the ‘caller’ (usually the mummy, sitting on her park bench…) and the rest of the people are the players.
- The caller calls out a colour and the players have to scramble around to find something of that colour to hold onto. Everyone has to find their own colour, so if someone is already on the colour you find you can’t go on there too.
That’s it.
My kids and the approximately 4782 kids we’ve played this game with over the years will play the colours game until I get bored calling out the colours. Then they have a go doing the calling amongst themselves, but this always peters out quickly because, let’s face it, games where the grown-up isn’t doing the calling never last long.
The game is great fun at the park because playground equipment is multi-coloured, but you can play it just about anywhere if you are prepared to umpire debates of what constitutes ‘light brown versus dark brown versus medium brown’, etc.
Variations on the simple theme
Knock-out colours – the last person to find the colour is out until eventually you have a winner who gets to be the next caller (see above re longevity of game when adult not involved).
Obstacle colours – call out two or more colours at the same time and the kids then need to run to blue, then red, then yellow, etc.
Colour patterns – call out a pattern of colours for the kids to run to together – brown, red, brown, red or yellow, blue, pink, blue, yellow, etc.
More colours – give the kids a bit more of a runaround by asking them to find two, three or more examples of the colour you call out.
The simple things are so often the best.
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What kinds of games do you play at the park?
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Images: Maxabella
