Colored Eggs
contributed by Ann
Mosconi
| This was a favorite game of younger children in our neighborhood. An older child was an unobtrusive supervisor by being the "mother". The mother had two functions in the game, the first was to secretly assign each child a different color. The second function was to "answer the door". Once all the children had their colors given to them, they announced that they were ready. Another child who had been waiting at some distance, so as not to overhear the colors, then came back to the play area. Before the game started, an "obstacle course" was laid out, and all the children walked through it to make sure they knew where they had to go. Depending on the age of the children, the course could consist of simply running around two trees in the yard and coming back home. Or it could involve more complicated things such as crawling under a fence, running around the house, or jumping over the sidewalk. Once everyone was ready, the child who was waiting came over to the "house", at which point a conversation ensued between him and the mother: "Knock knock". "Who's there?" "The big, bad wolf". "What do you want?" "Colored eggs". "What color?" At this point, the wolf would name a color, hoping that it had been assigned to one of the eggs. If not, he had to go away and come back and do it all over again. But if he chose a color belonging to one of the children, that "egg" took off running the obstacle course as fast as possible, with the wolf in hot pursuit. If the egg got home safely, the wolf kept coming back until he was successful in catching an egg. Once an egg was caught, that child became the new wolf, and the game started over with the older child or adult remaining in the role of the mother. | ||
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