KIDS GAMES
Version 1: This game is known to every one by name and yet its simple rules are often forgotten. A couple of dozen bean bags are made in two colours of muslin. The players stand in two lines opposite each other and evenly divided. At the end of the line is a clothes basket. The bags are placed on two chairs at the opposite end of the line and next to the two captains. At a signal the captains select a bag and pass it to the next player, who passes it along until finally it is dropped into the basket. When all the bags are passed they are then taken out and passed rapidly back to the starting point. The side whose bags have gone up and down the line first scores a point. If a bag is dropped in transit it must be passed back to the captain, who starts it again. Five points usually constitute a game.
Version 2: Usually, there are four bags to a set, but any number of persons from two to eight can play at bean-bags. Each player holds two, flinging to his opponent the one in his right hand, and rapidly shifting the one in his left to the right, so as to leave the left hand free to catch the bag which is thrown at him.
Version 3: Prepare an even number of bean bags of moderate size, half of one color and half of another. Appoint leaders, who choose the children for their respective sides. There should be an even number on each side. The opponents face each other, with the leader at the head, who has the bag of one color at his side. The bags are to be passed, 1st, with right hand, 2d, with left hand, 3d, with both hands, 4th, with right hand over left shoulder, 5th, with left hand over right shoulder. Before the contest begins, it is best to have a trial game, so all understand how to pass the bags. At a given signal, the leaders begin, and pass the bags as rapidly as possible down the line, observing all the directions. The last one places them on a chair, until all have been passed, and then he sends them back, observing the same rules, until all have reached the leader. The side who has passed them back to the leader first, and has done so successfully, is the winning side.
(From several public domain works)
Bean-Bag Cases
(See the Crafts For Kids page of this website for complete details.)
There are various ways of ornamenting the bags. The real bags must first be made of stout cloth, over-handed strongly all round, and filled (not too full) with white baking-beans. Over these are drawn covers of flannel, blue or scarlet, and you can work an initial in white letters or braid on each, or make each of the four bags of a different color—yellow, blue, red, green; anything but black, which is hard to follow with the eye, or white, which soils too soon to be desirable.