Traditional games from Latvia

Presented in May, 2012

In Rena

Pebble, jump out!

• The game can be played by four and more children.

• All the children sit with crossed elbows and holding palms together.

• The leader has a pebble in his hands holding palms together.

• The leader goes along the players and tries to slip the pebble in one of the player’s hands, imitating the same action with all the other players. Nobody knows who has got the pebble.

• Then the leader shouts : “Akmentiņ, lec laukā!” “Pebble, jump out!”

• The player with the pebble should try to jump out.

• The other players have to guess who has got the pebble and they should try to stop the player with the pebble.

Namiņš deg!House is burning!

• The game can be played by unlimited number of players.

• The players stand in a circle with the faces to the centre. One player goes round the circle behind the players and touches somebody’s back saying: ”Namiņš deg!” “The house is burning!”

• As soon as the player touches somebody’s back and shouts:”The house is burning!”, both players run round the circle each taking the opposite direction. They try to reach the empty place.

• The player who can’t reach the empty place the first goes round the circle and the game is repeated.

Rooster fight

• A circle should be drawn on the ground, the circle should be 3-4 metres in diameter. The participants should split in two teams that will stand in two queues on each side of the circle.

• One player from each team goes in the circle and stands on one foot about 1.5 metre away from each other, their hands can be put together at the back or one hand can be used to hold the raised up leg but the free hand goes behind his/her back.

• After the signal “roosters", the players start to jump on one leg and with their shoulders try to push the opponent out of the circle or make the opponent stand on both feet.The winner gets one point for their team. After that, other two players go (from each team one) to play the same game. And so on until all the players have played the game.