Favorite things to do when you were a child...

[Sara Noel]

I was making a list of all of my favorite things I did when I was a kid, so that I could do these things with my kids.

I remember I used to love just making masks out of grocery paper bags. I'd cut and draw and paste. It was just fun.

I loved to rollerskate, read, and play dominoes.

I played an instrument and spent a lot of time just playing my flute. Before I had formal instruction, I played an electric keyboard and a recorder.

I remember spending hours looking for 4 leaf clovers. Chasing grasshoppers, making what I thought was flower perfume, daisy chains, etc

I loved my lemon twist toy, chinese jumprope, jacks, and marbles.

I had a rubberband and a bottlecap collection. I once stacked smarties and built a small city on my dresser. lol

I loved kickball, monopoly, life, operation, trouble, and parcheesi.

I used to love spying on our neighbors. lol

I loved collecting stickers, swimming, rollerskating, snorkeling, diving for mussels and crayfish, fishing, skiing, tubing.

Reading, writing, and puzzles of all sorts were some of my most favorite things to do.

I look at the way life is today with computers, tv, games, and I just can't stand it sometimes. I don't want my kids sitting. I want them out there and having fun. Just plain old fun.

I know I named tons of things and I could have named tons more, but I wanted to hear some of the things you loved to do as a kid.

[lucy979]

I used to just be outside for hours. Not really sure what I was doing!

I used to make mud pies, ride my bike everywhere, swing on the swingset.

I loved to read. Still do!

I don't remember playing many board games. I had Operation though. I loved to look through catalogs, too.

I had a hula hoop that I used to be really good at. I am not sure I could keep it up now though.

That is really all I can think of right now.

[Heather]

Great thread!

I remember: making forts in my Dad's hay field,
~playing hopscotch, skipping rope
~playing marbles and jacks on the front porch
~making forts with tons of blankets over top of lawn chair outside and inside in the livingroom over the coffee table
~making our own homemade sailboats and sailing them in the puddles after a rain
~playing cutouts-my neighour and I would cut out Mom's, Dad's and kids out of the catalogue and play house with them.....we would cut out furniture and bedding and kitchen stuff to make up a house, clothes to interchange, riding lawnmowers, it was so much fun
~we used to jump from the rope in the barn into the hay (it's funny how now it's so dangerous and then it was the norm!
)
~play with the barn cats
~camp in the backyard
~catch fireflies
~blow bubbles with a simple wand, would do that for hours...still do!
~make snow forts, snow men, snow tractors, snow animals
~cross country ski in our back field
~tobaggan in our field on crazy carpets, you know the $2.00 piece of plastic....you don't need a $50.00 tobaggan..

Thanks for the memories Sara..there are so many more...

[duckduckgoose007]

Good thread, Sara.

I liked to:

Swim
Play in my play-house my Dad made out of a chicken coop
Paper Dolls
Jump Rope
Kick-the-Can
Roller Skate
Sleigh Ride
Ice Skate
Read-Read-Read
Catch Fire-Flies
Duckduckgoose---what else

[Darlene]

Playing with matchbox cars in the driveway
Playing house (in the fall using leaves to make "rooms")
Playing school,store
legos
Getting the neighborhood together for games of spud,kickball,wiffleball,4 square,tv tag, dinomite,hopscotch,king of the mountain

bike riding, swinging, running through sprinkler, seesaw(remember monkey monkey let me down?) fishing

collecting anything that looked cool,rocks,bottlecaps,pieces of glass,

Digging to china
Looking at clouds,stars ants
I could go on & on...

[Heather]

You've really got me thinking now and don't know how I forgot:

~being Mommy for years to my Thumbelina doll (she had a string to pull on her back that made her wiggle)

~oh, yes, finding shapes in the clouds

~and Laci, I forgot the mud pies....we used to find the oddest things to decorate them with

[guest2]

I love this thread!!!!

~Dressing up my brothers who were much younger than I was. I'd make them look as goofy as possible!
~Racing the rain down the steep hill at our house.
~Riding skateboards.
~Boogie Boarding and Body Surfing along with swimming.
~Making forts with old boxes and blankets.
~Having slumber parties and sleeping under the stars at the beach.
~Going to Grandma's house and having her all to myself while Granpa was at work.
~Making Barbie houses.
~Playing with my cats and dogs
~Playing cards.
~Going camping with my family, friends or the Girl Scouts
~Spending time with friends.
~Riding horses every chance I got.
~Reading for hours on end.
~Finding pretty shells and puka shells to make necklaces with.
~Showing the guests around the resort my father manages.
~Playing tag, hide and seek and other outdoor games.
~Twirling my batons for hours on end.

[Sara Noel]

I loved going fishing first thing in the morning. I'd fish off the dock. The water was so clear and still. You could see fish swimming around and could just drop the line right to them.

I also would catch minnows then too.

At night, the fireflies were always around. Bats swooping too. I used to water the grass at night and then go hunting for nightcrawlers to fish with.

I used to collect flat stones to skip. I remember writing boy's names that I liked on the rocks with other rocks and then skipping them into the lake. lol

I had a pogo stick that I liked to try and outjump myself everyday.

My friends and I would teach each other cheers and we'd spend hours just cheering.

Played a lot of badminton.

There isn't even a drive-in anywhere closeby here. I want my kids to go to a drive-in sometime. They closed the one down I went to when I was a kid and then reopened it a year before I left NY. I was so excited that they reopened it. lol

*sigh* memories

[gkp1031]

I loved:
reading, playing board games, playing cards,
helping my mom bake
playing house, store and school teacher
riding my bike, rollerskating, playing kickball
jumping rope, swimming

[The Savvy Saver]

This makes me think a little way back - lol. I liked:

Playing out all day with my friends till it was dark.
Riding my bike and using my hulu hoop. I loved it back then!
Roller skating and using my jump rope.
Reading and making up stories
Hiking in a nearby park and looking for frogs with my friends. I loved those little things!
I loved looking for fireflies and catching them.
I loved animals and enjoyed the zoo.
I loved to travel and especially to Cook Forest where I stayed in a cabin.
I loved toys and shopping for toys!
During winter I enjoyed sledding. I also made a little rollercoaster off my front porch which was really fun.

[i.m.cheap]

Roller skating.
Macrame'
Writing
playing outside with friends
Reading
I used to love to watch the old sci-fi movies they would show on Saturday afternoons, like "The Blob", "The Fly", etc.

[Missy]

Um...

playing baseball and softball in the playground
dressing our poor cat up in doll clothes
solitare, monopoly, etc
bike riding
crafty stuff
playdough and regular clays
fishing
collecting things

[Early Bird]

bump for parents w/ bored kids!

[simplemom]

I love this thread....

I used to love to color on the steps of our stairway

Play *bolo*

the skipping rope

barbie--I would make my bedroom into a barbie village...with stuff I had...(books, rolls of toillet paper, anything...)--oh yes..and I had *one* babrie only...

play school

watch *That Girl*

play elastic

organize costumed plays with what we had

swim in the river

collect rocks, seashells

paperdolls

lots and lots of crafts

play with my dolls--especially my thumbelina, just like you Heather.

Drawing cards when we would go to a birthday in the family

drawing Christmas drawings and my mom would put them on all the walls in our home.

Christmas eve...the excitement of waking for midnight mass...the festivities with extended family

visiting my sweet great-grandmother...I loved her so much...this was the one person in my whole life I felt so loved and secure...I miss her sooo much... She would be 104 yrs. old...she died 20 yrs, ago, when I was 20...)

brading my hair

going to visit my grandpa in Hamilton in ontario.

singing...

pinkpopcorn

Getting a small bag full of mixed candies I would chose for 10 cents.

....I miss those childhood years SO MUCH...

[sunshine]

We'd go wading in the creeks.

Bike riding all over the county.

Lay on our backs, on sheets in the grass and imagine pictures in the clouds.

Cut bicycle paths in the pasture grass- always beware of "Dead Man's Curve"

Made houses in the hay bales in the barn loft. I speciifically remember when my brother and his friend (6 years older than me) FORGOT to put in the exits and trapped me in the loft for hours. Mom finally found me.

Scribble pictures-- we'd take a black crayon and just scribble big loopy designs on scrap paper, then color them in with bright crayons. It would look like stained glass when we were done.

Reading - I think we read for hours nearly every day.