Lovely childcare

Traditional Games: Fun Old-Time Play. Popular Activities Useful in Childcare

9 years of experience as a nursery school teacherShibata Risa
I am an active nursery school teacher with 9 years of experience. After graduating from university, I worked at a daycare center. The time I spent happily with children—playing piano, singing songs, and doing finger-play—are priceless memories to me. Currently, while raising three children of my own, I work at an after-school day service, engaging with children and providing individualized developmental support. Drawing on my diverse experiences as a childcare worker and as a mother, I hope to express and convey my thoughts through writing.

Traditional folk games that have long been loved in Japan are packed with timeless charms that captivate children across generations.

Because folk games let us experience old cultures and local traditions, we want to pass many of these games from adults down to children.

In this feature, we’ll introduce a wide variety of such time-honored folk games.

We’ve gathered many activities kids can truly get absorbed in—everything from physical games, to ones using traditional toys like ohajiki (small playing pieces) and stilts, to word- and song-based games like karuta and chachatsubo.

We hope you’ll incorporate them in nursery schools and kindergartens and enjoy them together with the children.

Traditional Play: Fun Old-Time Games. Popular Activities (31–40) for Use in Early Childhood Education

Reverse hide-and-seek

Reverse hide-and-seek: When you spot the ‘it’ (the tagger), hide immediately! Who will be the last one remaining...?

Reverse hide-and-seek

The idea of adding a little twist to the usual game of hide-and-seek—reverse hide-and-seek—is really fun and highly recommended.

The rules are flipped: the seeker is the one who hides! Everyone else tries to find the hiding seeker.

If you’re lucky enough to find them, you then go hide somewhere yourself! The person who can’t find the last remaining hider loses.

You might feel like shouting “Found you!” when you spot them, but if you do, everyone else will rush over.

So in reverse hide-and-seek, even if you find the seeker, quietly go hide yourself.

It’s a thrilling game where you keep the joy of discovery to yourself.

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S-ken

S (Es) Ken

S-ken

Territory battles while hopping on one foot! Introducing S-Ken, a game you play with one-legged hopping.

Divide the children into two teams.

Draw a large S on the ground, place treasure in each team’s territory, and surround each treasure with a half-circle.

Set up several islands around the S as safe zones, and make an out area—then it’s time to play! When attacking the other team, you must challenge them while hopping on one foot.

Battles are like hand-push sumo, and always one-on-one.

If both feet touch the ground, you’re out and must watch the outcome from the out area.

Who will snatch the other team’s treasure first? It’s sure to get exciting!

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In conclusion

Children learn many things through play. Please take this opportunity to try out a variety of games. Even with the same traditional games, there are slight differences depending on the region, so I think it’s interesting to look into those. You can tweak the rules a little or develop the games further. Once you’ve tried them as they are, try adding your own ideas and play in your own way!