Summary

Game type: 'Pop Goes the Weasel' (elimination game)
Alternative types: games with music

Handwritten description of the elimination game 'Pop Goes the Weasel' compiled by Bill Whitehouse, a student at Errol Street Primary School, for Dr Dorothy Howard on 25 August 1954. Whitehouse describes 'Pop Goes the Weasel' as a game suitable for girls and boys, which can be played all year round. To play, a child plays a piano. Whitehouse explains that when the pianist stops playing, the other children must bob down or they are eliminated from the game. The last remaining child is declared the winner.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's game 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 description in blue ink on paper. Features text written on one side only.

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