Summary

Game names (and types): 'Spinning Tops', 'Hoop Relay' (play with props/equipment), 'Tens', 'Seven's', 'Twos', '(For) Sixes' and 'Ones' (ball games)

Handwritten descriptions of games involving balls, spinning tops and hoops compiled for Dr Dorothy Howard by Colleen Laurie-Rhodes, L. Havanagh and Margot Kelly, students at Clayfield College, in October 1954. Laurie-Rhodes describes briefly play with spinning tops. She writes that the only rule is to keep the top spinning. Havanagh lists a number of ball games including 'Tens', 'Seven's', 'Twos', '(For) Sixes' and 'Ones'. Kelly describes 'Hoop Relay', a game involving two teams in lines. To play, players take turns to roll the hoop across to the opposing team from the front of their line.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's games written to children's Folklorist Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1955. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. This letter, together with the other original fieldwork collected by Dr Howard during this period, is preserved in the Dorothy Howard Collection manuscript files, part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC), Archive Series 3. The ACFC is an extensive collection documenting children's folklore and related research.

Physical Description

Handwritten game descriptions in blue ink on lined paper. Feature text written by three different hands; text printed on both sides of page.

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