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Whatever happened to hopscotch? Remember playing tag or Red Light, Green Light until dusk? In today's media-driven culture, such traditional games are fast becoming a thing of the past. Let's bring 'em back.

Article Excerpt
EVERYONE OVER 30 has some version of this childhood memory: You're out playing with the neighborhood kids--kickball, stickball, tag--and evening is coming on. You've been outside since you came home from school several hours earlier. It's getting dark. The neighborhood porch lights come on, the temperature drops, but you're too absorbed in play to go get a sweater. Just as it's getting too dark to see the ball and your arms and legs are thoroughly chilled, you hear your mother calling you in for dinner. "Aw, mom--five more minutes!" you beg.

You may not have realized it at the time, but when you played hopscotch, jump rope, or dodgeball in the school yard or driveway, or on the sidewalk, you were taking part in a children's culture that had been passed on from kid to kid for generations. In fact, many of the games American children played in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s are thousands of years old, according to Dr. Rhonda Clements, professor of education at Hofstra University and past president of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play (www.ipausa.org).

"Jacks date back to ancient Rome, when they were carved from ivory or bone," she says. "The Romans also played marbles to develop hand-eye coordination, using dried peas, nuts, or pebbles." Jumping rope began in ancient Greece, where it was practiced by the entire family, and Hippocrates recommended hoop rolling as physical conditioning for both adults and children....