W&ONDERFUL Holiday Playbook
By Josie Curran
TRADITIONAL GAMES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
Western & Oriental Holiday Playbook Many people’s treasured childhood memories come from their early family holidays. For me it’s a French camping trip when my dad organised a sand sculpture competition and my sister’s triumph with her volcano mountain that featured a smoking lava mouth. There’s also the Spanish holiday where my family and I enjoyed illicit late evening card games listening to the cicadas as they hummed the night in. Whether it’s burying mum and dad in the sand or a game of skimming stones against the setting sun, there is something hugely exciting about the chance to create memories for our children to cherish for years to come. Family holidays provide the opportunity to take a break from our busy lives and make up for lost time. They are a chance for us to spend quality time together and remind ourselves how much fun it is to play. For some of us it’s not only the kids who need a reminder of how to let their hair down…and turn off the Blackberry! So whether your family holiday is booked or still in the early stage of planning, here’s our guide to help you and your family re-discover the art of stripped back and traditional holiday game-playing. It’s your chance to create some sun kissed childhood memories for them to enjoy for years to come. Give it a go. You might surprise yourself and find you enjoy it just as much as the kids! Josie Curran, Author
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CONTENTS Games for around the swimming pool
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Games for the Beach
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Games for Rainy Days
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Games for the Plane
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Games for Grown-ups
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Traditional Games from Around the World
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Games for around the swimming pool
Rubber Ring Polo Rubber Ring Polo is a pool-based game where players use a rubber ring instead of a horse to race across the water and score goals. This game does require you to monopolise an area of the pool so if you’re sharing it with other hotel guests it might be polite to ask if they mind, or even better, persuade them to play. All you need to give it a go is a beach ball, a rubber ring per player and something to mark out the goal posts at either end of the pool. How to play • To get started, mark out the centre line and the two goal areas at opposite ends of the swimming pool. Get into two teams and get each team to line up at either end in front of their goals. • On the word, someone throws the ball into the middle of the pool. As soon as the ball touches the water everyone scrambles forward to grab the ball. Players must stay mounted on rubber rings at all times. • As soon as a player takes possession, their sole objective is to hurl the ball between the goalposts of the opposition team. The other team’s aim is to block them from scoring. Knocking another player off their rubber ring is definitely a foul as is any sort of physical contact. • If a foul occurs or the ball is knocked out of the pool, a player on the opposite team to the fouler has to throw the ball back into play from the poolside. • The winning team is the one who scores the most goals within a pre-agreed time.
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Swimming Pool Olympics If you’re planning to spend a lot of time by the pool and are looking for a game that plays out throughout your holiday then you might fancy organising a Swimming Pool Olympics. How to play • First up, you need to decide what games are going to form your Swimming Pool Olympics. The easiest and most diplomatic way to do this is for each player to put forward a game. • To give you a helping hand, below are some of our favourites: n Pool
Pogo – a race across the pool with contestants touching the bottom on each bounce.
n Sunken
Treasure Hunt – a diving game where contestants have sixty seconds to collect the largest accumulative amount of money from the bottom of the pool.
n Frozen
T-Shirt Competition – a race to be the first to put on a frozen t-shirt. Simply soak a t-shirt per player and ask the friendly poolside bar or ice cream man if he or she can freeze your t-shirts. When they’re ready it’s a race to be the first to get one on. Have the video camera at the ready for this one!
• Finally nominate a Score Master to identify the Swimming Pool Olympic Champion.
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Games for the Beach Flip Flop Tag This is the traditional game of tag with a beachside twist. In this game everyone has two lives in represented by flip flops which are stuffed down their trousers or skirt. How to play • Get the kids to put their shoes either down the backs of their trousers or skirts or tuck them securely underneath a belt. You need to ensure that each child has a reasonable amount of shoe sticking out of the top so that the other kids can grab it. • Choose whose ‘it’ and whoever it is has to chase after the kids and try to pull a shoe out of the backs of their trousers, skirt or belt. • Once a shoe is grabbed, these are then put at the side. A player becomes ‘it’ when both their shoes have been taken.
Sand Skittles This is a beach friendly game of skittles played with sand filled recycled water bottles. To give it a go, all you need are nine empty plastic water bottles filled with sand with their lids screwed back on, and something round and heavy to be the ball. How to play • First up, prepare your kit. Fill your nine bottles with equal amounts of sand and screw the lids back on. Get hold of a ball that is heavy enough to roll on the sand and knock the bottles down, otherwise go for a throwing beach stone – makes it a bit more like a coconut shy than a game of skittles but still works. • Set your nine skittles up so they form an equal triangle. • Players then have two turns to roll or throw to see how many sand bottles they can knock down. • The easiest way to score is a point for every sand bottle that’s knocked over.
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Games for Rainy Days
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The Brilliant Ball Bashing Game This is a great little game that allows your kids to let off a little steam if the rain has made an unwelcome visit to your holiday. To give it a go, all you need is a stopwatch, a pile of old newspapers and a blindfold per player. It can be played with as small or large a group as you have gathered. How to play • Get the kids to prepare a pile of scrunched-up balls of newspapers and lay out some clothes or a piece of rope to mark out the two sides of the pitch. • Next, split the kids into two teams and position them on either side of the rope with half the paper balls on either side. Get the players to put their blindfolds on. • The object of the game is to get rid of as many of the newspaper balls on your side of the pitch as possible within a minute, with both teams throwing the balls over to their opponents’ side. • At the end of the minute, the team with the fewest balls on their side scores a point. The game plays on until one of the teams reaches five points and they’re declared the winners.
Speaker’s Corner This is a brilliantly simple cerebral family game. It gives you the chance to hear your kid’s views on anything from world poverty or marine conservation, to the merits of snorkelling over deep sea diving. How to play • First of all you need to do a bit of preparation. Take a sheet of paper and tear it into smaller slips of paper. On each piece write a subject that you the other players have to talk on for a set amount of time. It’s your chance to hear their view on anything and everything so it’s worth giving it some thought. Fold these pieces of paper up and put them in a hat. • Get everyone gathered around the table. Players then take it in turn to pull a slip of paper out of the hat. They then have 30 seconds to talk on the subject without interruption. If they manage to keep to the topic without too much hesitation they score a point. • As players get the hang of how to play, you might want to add another 5 seconds as each round progresses. • The player with the highest score wins. I would suggest some heavy handicapping for the parents to make it fair game.
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Games for the Plane Human Slot Machine This is a re-interpretation of the classic pub fruit machine that’s been re-invented to play on the plane. How to play • Get yourselves set up with three bags with the same items in each bag. The easy way to do this on the plane is to use the handy paper sick bag that can be found in the pocket in front of each seat and then wait until the airplane meal is served and swipe three of the same items from three meals – a plastic fork, cup or empty can of soda are all ideal. • Next give each of the players one of the matching bags, and if there’s anyone else then they can take it in turns to play on the Human Slot Machine. • To give it a go, whoever’s turn it is to gamble makes a whirring fruit machine noise (or any other noise of your choosing) and on the word ‘Ping” the three bag holders each simultaneously pull an item from their paper bag. The player wins if three of the same items are pulled out.
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Airplane Bingo This is a simple game of bingo that has been designed to play on the plane. It’s a competition to be the first to spot all items featured on the bingo board below. The first to spot and cross all of them out is the winner.
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Games for Grown-ups
The Hat Game This is one of my favourite after dinner games where teams race to describe a long list of famous names using words, mime and clues. How to play • Get everyone to split into two teams and get each player to write ten famous people’s names (fictional or real) on individual slips of paper piece. Fold these in half and put into a hat. • The first team to start chooses a player who has one minute to describe as many of the people as possible without mentioning their name. They can do anything but say the name on the paper. Impressions and ‘sounds like’ clues are allowed. • The number of correct guesses is counted up at the end of the minute and this is the score for that team. Pieces of paper that have been correctly guessed are put in a separate hat. • It’s then someone on the next team’s turn and the game plays on, swapping between teams until all the names have been used up. • The game then goes into round two, and the same process is gone through again, using the same names as before, but this time team members are only allowed to say one word to enable others to try and guess what it is. In the final round players have to mime each character, hoping that their teammates remember each one from the two previous rounds. • The team with the highest score wins.
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Phrase Book Balderdash This is the classic game of Balderdash with a holiday twist. Instead of using a dictionary you play with a foreign phrase book. How to play • Players take it in turns to lead each round and choose an obscure word from the phrase book with the other players having to write a plausible meaning for the word. The objective of the game is to confuse other players into selecting yours as the correct one. • When done, everyone discretely submits them to the round leader who has also written out the actual meaning on a matching slip of paper. • Each slip is then read out and players must guess which is the right one. Scoring as follows: n
All players choosing the correct meaning of the word get two points.
n
Players get a point every time another player chooses the slip they wrote.
If no one identifies the correct meaning then the leader of that round gets a point. n
n If someone has written a meaning that is close to the real one, that person gets two points.
• The game then moves on with different people leading each round. Once everyone has had a go, the player with the highest score wins.
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Traditional Games from Around the World Wherever you are in the world, there will be a game playing tradition. Playing games is an inherent part of the human make up and a crucial stage in child development. Many of the games from around the world are variations on the ones we play in the UK. Through time they have travelled the globe and the best ones have been adopted and adapted and have lasted the test of time. If you fancy immersing yourselves in the culture of the country you’re in, then why not learn about and try the traditional games that people play. To give you a helping hand, below are four games that you might enjoy trying out - either as a family or to make a few local friends.
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Dern Kala Dern Kala is a traditional game from Thailand that involves contestants racing towards the finishing line with coconut shells on their feet. How to play • Get hold of a coconut – fresh or an ice-cream filled shell. Drink the milk and enjoy the coconut flesh or icecream and then give it a good clean out. Next you need to make a hole into the top of each coconut so that you can thread some string through and tie the two shells at either end. This should be done so the flat cut of the shell is facing down. You might want to ask the hotel staff or the coconut man to help you with making the hole. • Get your players lined up at the starting line with their coconut shell shoes on, and on the word ‘go’ it’s a race to the finishing line.
Gilli Danda Gilli Danda is a hugely popular Indian kids street game that’s a bit like cricket but played with two sticks instead of a bat and ball. How to play • Get yourself set up with two sticks. A longer one of about 12-18 inches that is called the Danda and is used in the same way as a cricket bat. The smaller one called the Gilli and is about 3-6 inches long and should, if possible, tapered at both ends. • Next prepare the pitch by drawing a circle in the ground of about 1 metre diameter and score a hole in the middle that is deep enough for the Gilli to stand in it. It doesn’t matter if it rests at an angle. • Get into two teams. One team lines up to bat and the other spreads itself around the circle to field. The first person to bat rests the Gilli in the hole and then strikes it using the Danda. • Once the Gilli is struck, the batter places the Danda over the Gilli hole. The fielders then have to try to catch the Gilli to get the batter out. If the Gilli lands on the ground the fielder closest to it grabs hold of it and throws it towards the Danda (which was placed on top of the Gilli hole). If the fielder hits the Danda then the batter is out. If not, the batter scores one point and gets another turn to bat. • If the batter fails to hit the ball three times then they are out – similar to the game of cricket or rounders. • The winner is the person or team with the most points at the end of the game.
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Jamaican Dandy Shandy The rather brilliantly named Dandy Shandy is a traditional Jamaican schoolyard ball game that’s played in small groups of three or four. The fun of the game is watching whoever’s stood in the middle of the circle perform a host of acrobatic stunts to prevent being hit by the ball. How to play • Get hold of a ball (a soft beach ball or foam football is ideal to prevent anyone getting hurt) and draw a circle in the sand. • Get one player to stand in the middle with the other players stood around the edge. • On the word ‘go’ the players outside of the circle throw the ball at the player in the middle who is out if the ball hits them. The circle player has to perform all sorts of jumping, leaping and acrobatic manoeuvres within the circle to avoid the ball. Stepping outside of the circle is another way of being ‘out’. • Once they’re out the next player swaps in to take their turn. The player who stays in the longest wins.
Mexican Colorinas Colorinas is a traditional Mexican children’s game. It’s brilliantly portable and ideal to fill an afternoon on the beach. How to play • Dig a small hole in the ground and then draw a line about eight feet away. Each player will need a handful of beans or small beach pebbles – any number between eight and twelve is ideal depending on the size of the pebbles or beans. The important part is that all players have the same number. • Players then take it in turns to see how many beans they can throw into the hole in one toss. The same player then collects the beans that have landed in the hole, places them on the palm of their hand and then with a practiced jerk they have to toss the beans into the air and try to catch as many as they can on the back of their hand. To get their final score, the player must then flip the beans from the back of their hand and into their palm. The number of beans that they get in the final catch gives them the score for that round. The game then moves on to the next player. • The player with the highest score wins.
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Western & Oriental’s Holiday Playbook is brought to you by Josie Curran, author of a number of books on games, activities and other marvellous things to do. She lives with her boyfriend Barney, her two children Herbie and Kitty, and Otter the dog in a wooden house on a hill, deep in the wild and windy Devonshire countryside. www.josie-curran.com
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020 7666 1230 family@WandOtravel.com www.WandOtravel.com/families Layden House, 76-86 Turnmill Street London EC1M 5QU