Many families with children They have had the experience of seeing how their children, with a house full of toys, They started playing with the cardboard boxes that minutes before housed dolls, cars and trains.

Often, clothespins, a bucket full of water or a ball can be more precious toys than any sophisticated «Action-Man», and a sheet placed between two armchairs can be converted into a fantastic cabin or a refuge inaccessible.

All this suggests that To play you do not need to have expensive materialsnor overwhelm the child with games and teaching materials.

What’s more, Often just the opposite occurs, like a boomerang effect: a child who is used to playing with the video game console and computer, with remote-controlled cars and electric drones will greatly enjoy the summer camp where he will have the opportunity to participate in a gymkhana, throw stones into a river or play jumping horse.

Below you will find a selection of traditional games that take all this into account. In this video you will also find, in general terms, the games that most develop children’s creativity and give them well-being:

In play, as in everything related to the emotional and psychological development of the child, it is good to reach a fair midpoint between the current moment (progress and new technologies) and the primitive roots: in the case of the game, playing for the sake of playing, testing skills and enjoying with friends or those closest to you.

In this article we show you very simple games from around the world that children love and keep them away from screens.

Intercultural games for children

This is precisely the objective of most of the games that are transmitted orally, and who play and have played for centuries, children of the five continents.

They are games timeless, movement and actionwhich have one point in common: the body is the key piece. Besides, the regulation is very simple and hardly any materials are needed.

Experts like Jaume Bantulaprofessor of Education and Sports Sciences at Blanquerna (Ramon Llull University) and Josep Maria Moraprofessor of Physical Education at the Jaume Balmes Institute of Barcelona, ​​compiled some of the most representative ones in a book, and the result is multicultural games, a work that collects 225 games from the five continentswhich all children on the planet play and can play because They do not require special materials or a specific environment. You just need to have the desire to play and playmates.

The authors only have excludedin his search, board gamesthose practiced with songs or those done with babies, and, of course, all those that involve violence.

Jaume Bantulà explains that the book aims to be a sample of the immense variety of games that exist.

«Leisure demonstrations are a mirror of society and, regardless of time and space, they respond to the same human concerns. Traditional and popular games maintain a close relationship with the need that the human being has to adapt to a context and to understand your relationship with the environment«.

For example, there are games that are survivals of ancient magical-religious rituals, or one demonstration of skills and abilities through which in the past the most suitable people were chosen to be the leaders of the community (the fastest or fastest, the strongest, the most resistant…).

There are also games that serve to develop manual dexterity and learn to handle certain utensils that serve to develop different jobs.

7 GAMES FROM THE 5 CONTINENTS FOR YOUR CHILDREN TO ENJOY

Of the hundreds of traditional games that exist around the world, we highlight those that have the most similar versions in very different countries.

All of them are played outdoors, with hardly any materials, and enhance physical skills in which children find special pleasure, such as running, jumping or maintaining balance.

ROPE STRETCH

This typical malaysian game is called tarik tangan and it is very similar to the game of pulling onions or pulling a rope that is played in Spain.

The participants are distributed in two opposite rows, holding each other by the waist. Both row leaders grab each other’s wrists with arms outstretched, separated by a dividing line.

At a signal, Each group pulls hard towards their field to make those on the opposite side cross the line..

There is another variant in which children hold each other on a stick.

to form The teams are distributed according to whether they were born in winter or summer.

SIMBA AND THE ANTILOPE

It’s a chase game very popular in Zaire. In Spain it is called The Labyrinth.

The participants are organized in several parallel rows that hold hands.

One of them is the lion Simbathe predator, and another is the antelopethe dam. At a signal from the referee, Simba begins to chase the antelope, which must escape between the rows.

But When the referee shouts «over!», the players release their hands and make a 90-degree turn to their rightholding hands again and forming a new row. The constant changes of rows cause disorientation of the predator and its prey.

THE NEST

In groups of three players, stand on your back and, intertwining with your forearms, they bend one of their legs backwards, resting it on those of other playersforming a kind of nest.

Thus placed, They have to move to a goal, always synchronized and rotating on their own axis.

It is very popular in Burkina Faso (Africa), where it is called Sara Kuru. Similar games are takliin the Indiaand the sakharou di euré diel of the Senegal.

THE TAIL OF THE DRAGON

A group is formed eight to twelve players, in a row.

The first represents the head of a dragon, and the last its tail.

The group walks slowlyholding each other’s shoulders, but At a signal the head has to try to hold on to the tail.

The rest of the playerswithout letting go, they have to protect the tailbecause if it is touched it is eliminated from the game.

It is very popular in India, Germany and in El Salvador.

THE WHALE

Between 6 and 8 players stand in a row, bending their waists at right angles, and holding the hips of the player in front. Thus they form what the children call «a whale.»

The one who is found In the last position you must crawl along the whale’s back until you reach the start.

It is played in Papua New Guinea (tukapohowat) and in Burkina Faso where is it called the chaussée of two. In Spain partly reminiscent of churro, half sleeve, mangotero, and It is played with two teams: one forms the whale and the others jump from behind.

BREAK THE CHAIN

The players, standing, form a circle, shaking hands.. One of them is placed in the middle of the circle and must try to get out by breaking the chain formed by the hands of his companions.

With slight variations it is played in the Congo (kasha mu bu-kondi), Colombia (kid came out of my garden), India (the thief bird), Philippines (breaks the chain), Mozambique (a velha náo) and Ghana (imenya kwan mansen).

THE BANDOLD

The players stand in a circle.

Inside it is placed a player blindfolded and with a stick in his hand. At one signal he makes the circle roll, and at another he stops it.

Then the blindfolded one He points the stick at one of the players in the circle. This must whistle or say the name of an animal or fruit.

He who is blindfolded must Guess which partner it is.

It is played in Colombiaalthough there are very similar versions in Spain (the cat), the Dominican Republic (the nau) and Portugal (cat in caution).

The game as a tool of intercultural communication

Who has not ever played «plucking onions», «charranca», or «churro, mediamanga, mangotero»? Well then, all these games have a similar version on sites so remote from the planet such as Papua New Guinea, Malaysia or Nepal.

Because? Well because they are born from the deepest part of the personthe desire to test one’s skills and have fun with what one has at that moment: friends and the desire to enjoy.

In the preparation of the book they have participated students from very different places of the entire planet, which have remembered what they or their parents played during their childhoodbefore coming to Spain.

It has also had contributions and materials provided by NGO collaboratorslike Intermón and Setem. These are often the main witnesses of how Imagination and fantasy can replace and help overcome an environment full of misery, poverty and exploitation.

Marti Boneta Carrera He is a collaborator of the NGO Setem and has been to El Salvador six times. Martí remembers how He was impressed to see the children invent their own games and have a great time for hours.

«Through play they invented their own reality and during that time they freed themselves from the anguish of war and poverty.»

For aid workers, who often settle in villages, living with families, The game also constitutes a magnificent integration tool.

«The quickest way to get to know each other and integrate was to play together,» explains Martí. «Besides, a mutual and fluid exchange was encouragedbecause we explained games from here to them and they explained games from there to us, and the children felt on equal terms to be able to teach something new and useful to a foreigner».

Martí Boneta assures that many games are practically the same in many countries, with small changes to adapt the game to the environment. For example, in El Salvador, children play charranca and tic-tac-toe, but instead of using a board they draw lines on the ground and use stones as tokens.

Also, however, there are significant differences, mainly in their internal logic, depending on whether the use of certain materials is more common in a place, or a cooperative or competitive structure of the game.

Bantulà explains: «If a society is matriarchal or patriarchal, agrarian or industrial, it is also reflected in the recreational practices of its inhabitants.» These differences, therefore, reveal the way of being and acting of each society.

The essentials of gaming (and why we’ve lost it)

Discovering how children in Malaysia have a great time with a rope or how gangs in Zaire play for hours and hours a game based on a circle that they draw on the ground is a lesson for Western consumer society.

For Josep M* Mora, the progressive loss in the West of the oral transmission of these games is due to two factors: the fast pace of lifewhich often leaves parents no choice but to resort to the easiest item to entertain children (a toy) and the change in free play spaces in the street.

«These spaces are becoming fewer, smaller and harder, made of cement. This hinders the survival of the traditional, sporadic, socializing game, as it has been generation after generation.»

To all this extracurricular activities are added…