Four Square Memories for Baby Boomer Grandparents – Past AND Present

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Sports balls and grandboys go together well, don't they? Soccer balls, baseballs, tennis balls, and my favorite (coz they are so easy to throw, even with arthritis AND they don't usually hurt if they hit me 🙂 ) – big plastic toy balls. My grandkids and I use these in a variety of ways – from ball tag to swing/kick ball. Our latest discovery is really a re-discovery for this baby boomer granddma. Four Square (though sometimes for us it's three or two square).

Four Square was one of my favorite games at recess! How about you? And it turns out, it's still quite fun for me. As I tell my grandsons, it's similar to playing tennis only with your hands and not a racket. 

But one thing my baby boomer brain is fuzzy on is the rules of the game. So I went hunting and oh, my – it's a lot more convoluted than I remembered! I'm guessing each generation has added their own little "flair" to the game!

I did find one Four Square site, Wiki-How, that had some fairly simple directions that would work well for my grandkids and I thought it might help you as well. 

The reality is, we can play it any way we want, as long as we all agree and it definitely helps to have some basic rules. Some of the new ideas I learned and liked today included:

• Each square has a name – Ace, King, Queen, Jack. Ace rules and gets to make any important decisions like changing a rule. Jack is where you go when you get out and everyone moves up. 
• It's OK for the ball to not bounce in the square.
• We decided it just has to stay inside the box – no touching lines or the person is out UNLESS the next person plays it, then it is OK.

They were OK with these rules and we enjoyed playing for awhile. Then we headed to the swing where there was more shade and played kickball on the swings. 

As I said, in our Sandwich Generation family, we do love to play a wide variety of ball games. How about yours? What's your favorite? And did you know, there is an annual world four square championship every winter in Maine! Hmmmm, could be a fun goal for some grandparents and grandkids. What do you think? 🙂  And…