Games Of Marbles

The teddy bears were very fed up. It had been raining almost constantly for several days now, meaning they hadn't been able to go outside and play. James was especially dejected.

"What's up, little James?" asked Charlie.

"I want to go outside and play!" replied James. "But it's too wet and cold, even with our raincoats and wellingtons on." And he sighed loudly.

"How about we play a game indoors instead?" asked Charlie. "Would you like me to show you some games with those marbles you bought on holiday?"

"Oh, yes please!" said James. "I think everyone would like that!"

So Charlie sent James to retrieve the marbles from their toybox, while he found some balls of coloured wool, some scissors and some old greetings cards.

"First of all, we can play a standard game of marbles," said Charlie. He cut two lengths of black wool, he tied one into a circle which he placed carefully on the floor, then he laid the other in a straight line some distance away.

"Put all the marbles in the circle," he instructed, "just keeping the extra-large marble out. The idea is that a person stands behind the line and flicks the large marble into the circle of marbles with their fingers and tries to knock as many as they can out of the circle. Continue until no marbles are left in the circle. The one who knocks most out is the winner."

Boo was the first to try. He found it very difficult to flick the large marble with his paws (him being a bear and therefore not having fingers to flick!), so he rolled it as hard as possible into the circle instead. That seemed to work quite well, but his first roll only knocked 2 marbles out of the circle.

"It would be better if we had different coloured marbles," said Charlie, as he retrieved the ones which Boo had knocked out of the circle. "Then you could have had your own colour and we could leave them on the ground. But ours are all the same colour so I will collect them as you knock them out so that we know how many each of you has scored."

Lizzie was Boo's opponent for the game and her first score was 3 but Boo's aim became better after several tries, and he ended up the winner!

When everyone had had a go at this knockout game, Charlie suggested they try something a bit different. He cut two more pieces of wool, in different colours, and then he placed them in circles inside the black circle they had been using.

"Think of this as a bullseye target," he explained. "You each have the same number of marbles and roll them onto the target trying to position them in the individual circles. Any marbles in the outside circle give you 10 points each, inside the yellow circle they are 20 points each, and if you get any into the red bullseye circle you get 25 points each."

This time it was Lizzie who was the winner - she managed to score 155 points! Well done, Lizzie!

When everyone had tried the bullseye game, James asked Charlie if there was time to learn another game before it was time for tea.

Charlie reached for the cards he had brought, and his scissors, and proceeded to cut low arches into the edges of the cards. Old greetings cards are ideal for this (if you are allowed to cut them up, of course!) Simply draw several arch shapes of different heights (by drawing round something oval) onto the plain portion of the card (usually the inside front cover).

Charlie used 3 cards, and cut 2 arch shapes into each. Then he wrote numbers above each arch, and then placed the cards vertically, with their arches showing at the front.

"How does this work, Charlie?" asked James, slightly puzzled.

"The number above each arch is the number of points you get if your marble goes through that arch. You take turns to roll your marbles towards the arches, trying your best to get a marble through as many as possible, then we add up the points to see who wins."

James went first and rolled his 10 marbles at the arches, trying to get one through the arch numbered 25 (though that was a smaller arch and in a rather difficult position and his marbles kept going off course). Eventually his first score was just 10, but in subsequent games he got better and better and eventually won overall! He was extremely pleased!

When his tummy started to rumble, though, he knew it was teatime, but they'd all had a lovely time learning some new games of marbles, and Charlie promised them that he would plan some more games for them for another time.

If you have any marbles, perhaps you would like to try some of the above games. If you have sets of differently-coloured marbles it is easier to identify who has scored points. And please be very careful where you play so you are not in anyone's way, and remember to carefully collect every single marble up after you finish. We don't want anyone tripping over! Enjoy your games!