6/1/09 My Rock Star Friends

Ask anybody who knows me - I love kids. Always have. I could do without the "Donne-moi un bonbon!" kids, but generally speaking, I'm a fan of the munchkin set. :)

Today, I spent a few minutes playing with some of Berberville's munchkins. They were playing a popular game, and it occurs to me I've never shared it with y'all.

Kids here play all kinds of games, and are especially fond of soccer...but their most inventive games they play with the materials close at hand, ie rocks.

Berberville has lots of rocks. We don't have a lot of grass, trees, or, y'know, groundcover of any kind, but rocks we've got.

So that's what the kids play with.

Today's rock game reminded me of jacks, an old-fashioned game I played a couple times as a kid. But, of course, without a bouncy ball or any star-shaped jacks. Just rocks. :)

Here's how it works:

1. Find four small, roundish rocks of roughly the same size (all about the size of a bouncy ball, actually.)
2. Arrange three in front of you.
3. Toss the fourth rock in the air and catch it. (From here on out, we'll call this one the "ball", to distinguish it from the three rocks on the ground.)
4. Toss the ball, scoop up one rock off the ground, and catch the ball.
5. Toss the ball, scoop up a second rock, and catch the ball.
6. Put both rocks down, toss the ball, pick them both up at once, then catch the ball.
7. Toss the ball, pick up the third rock, and catch the ball.
8. Put all three rocks down, toss the ball, scopp up all three at once, then catch the ball.
9-whatever: Keep repeating step 8 as many times as you can.

Your turn ends when you fail to catch the ball or fail to pick up the right number of rocks.

These kids were *good*, though, and routinely went through all 8 steps and then kept going and going. I took a turn, and kept failing to catch the ball. It's harder than you might think to throw it straight up while reaching for balls on the ground... Still fun to play with them, though. :)