One thing I loved about my old elementary school was our huge schoolyard playing field. If you got to school early enough in the morning, you could run up and down on the fields with your friends before class and that made for a fun start to a long day of learning.

Year: in the 90s
Grades: All Elementary
Place: Lockhart Elementary School

Playing in the schoolyard

What I especially loved and remembered from my childhood days playing on the field was when the teacher or whoever was outside with the kids got everybody around to play in one big circle together. It was always fun to see what each kid would do once it was there turn in the circle and it was always a rush to wonder if you were the person that they would stop on when they go around.

Then, all eyes would be on you for the 30 secs that you rode your pony or were the ‘brown girl in the ring’ and no one laughed or made fun of you while you did it. It was all fun and games.

Who remembers those songs? Who came up with those songs? Do kids today even know those songs or play those games any more?

Sometimes I wish that my children would have a childhood like mines where they would be able to play those old school games or did those fun hand games, like counting or ‘my momma, your momma live across the street…..”.

In this day and age it would be hard to get kids to go outside and play, much less play a game with their hands that didn’t have a device attached to their fingertips. Oh, the good old days, when kick ball and freeze tag were cool and you played with all the kids no matter what grade they were in or what neighborhood they lived in.

When did being separated by where you live on such a small island become a thing? Junior High? High School?

Elementary School when life was simple

I loved that age in elementary school when none of that mattered. Your friends were your friends because you had fun together and not because you lived in the same neighborhood.

It’s crazy now because as I am older and I go to places where a lot of people from back home are gathered and I run into people who were like your best friends in elementary school, who look at you now like, who are you? I think to myself sometimes, ‘honey I know your darkest secrets from when you were little’, but I brush it off and wave or let it go because maybe they did forget what they told you when we used to play together as children.

Oh, those good old days, I miss when things were much less complicated……

There’s a Brown Girl in the Ring

“There’s a brown girl in the ring,
Tra la la la la,
There’s a brown girl in the ring,
Tra la la la la la,
There’s a brown girl in the ring,
Tra la la la la,
She look like ah sugar and ah plum, plum, plum
Show mi yuh motion,
Tra la la la la…….”

Or

Here Comes Jackie

“Here’s comes Jackie on a pony, riding on a big, fat pony.
Here’s comes Jackie on a pony, this is Jackie pony.
Boom see Boom see, Shake it, Shake it,
Boom see Boom see, Shaaaake it
Boom see Boom see, Shake it, Shake it,
This is Jackie pony.”

What childhood games did you grow up with that kids today would balk at? Was your elementary school anything like mine where all the kids played together? Share some of your fun childhood memories in the comments.