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

Pyramid Rock-Paper-Scissors

Pyramid Rock-Paper-Scissors: Guaranteed to be a hit! A recreational activity

Pyramid Rock-Paper-Scissors

Guaranteed to be a blast—let’s play Pyramid Rock-Paper-Scissors! First, split into a defense team and an offense team.

Draw pyramid-shaped lines on the ground and place the defenders on the lines.

For example, if there are 15 defenders, put 5 people on the longest bottom line, then 4 on the next, and so on, ending with a single person at the top—that person is the King! The offense team starts by challenging anyone among the 5 at the bottom to rock-paper-scissors; if they win, they move up.

At the end, they play rock-paper-scissors with the King, and if they win, they clear the game.

If they lose at any point, they go back to the starting point.

Losing to the King also sends you back to start.

It’s a fun game where luck is put to the test!

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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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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!