Mr. Mars Mr. Mars may we travel through your stars?

Throughout this school year I have heard my 7 year old son talk about what he’s doing in P.E. He’s been doing things like roller skating and gymnastics. It sounds cool but what about all the fun games? Sure roller-skating is fun and learning how to tumble and flip is cool but where are all the fun games? You know, the ones I used to play when I was his age. Let’s take a trip to the late 80’s and early 90’s. When I was in school I had the privilege of playing games like Mr. Mars. You remember that game right? If not, the game involved the entire class. One person would be chosen to be Mr. Mars. The rest of the class would line up on one side of the gym and yell out a question to Mr. Mars.

“Mr. Mars Mr. Mars may we travel through your stars?”

Mr. Mars would promptly respond with something like, “Yes you may, yes you may, if you have the color I say…Green!”

The kids would check to see if they were wearing the color green or any color that was chosen and haul butt to the other side of the gym. Mr. Mars would chase the kids running across and if he or she happened to tag one of them, they would have to sit down in the place they were tagged. Now, I don’t remember for sure but I think if someone were to touch another person who was previously tagged, that person could get up and run. The game would go until all students were tagged and then a new Mr. Mars would be chosen. That game was probably the best one I played as a kid.

There were many other games I played and I knew it would be a great day when I entered the gym to witness Ms. Dornak pulling a parachute out of a box. I remember it had holes, many holes. It looked as though moths had been eating it for years. The parachute was also camouflage and I don’t remember the name of the game or why it was fun but I remember we would all grab a hold of it, put it in the air and pull it down over us. I can still see my classmates and I laughing as the parachute slowly fell on top of us. Does anyone recall the name of this game and if there was a point to it? A similar game involved a parachute or cloth that was multicolored and a hole in the middle of it. Ms. Dornak would throw a whiffle ball onto whatever it was we were holding and we would move it up and down making the ball bounce in the air. I believe this was called Popcorn. Maybe these games were the same?

Either way, I had a great time in P.E. as a kid. The games were always fun until the dreaded day of Country dancing. Ugh! I remember walking into the gym and seeing the record player, yes, I said record player, sitting in the middle of the gym. There would also be cutouts of footsteps to show us how to dosey doe and swing your partner round and round. Argh! Well, at least we didn’t have to dress the part. Does anyone know if the schools do these games anymore? There were others that involved a huge beach ball, two teams, and it was like soccer but each player would have to do the crab walk. It might have been called Chinese Soccer but I’m not for sure. Are there any games you can think of? I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot. One more game I want to mention does not involve P.E. but it’s good enough to make the list here. So, do you remember, Heads Up 7up? You don’t? Well if I remember correctly, there were seven people who would stand up in front of the class. The students who were at their seats would put their heads down and put their thumb up. The seven students would run out and choose a person by putting their thumb down. Once all seven were back up front they would yell,

“Heads up 7up!”

Those who were chosen would try and guess who picked them and if they were correct they would have a turn to choose someone in the next round. If they chose wrong it would go to the next person and so on. It was a fun game! I don’t know if my son has played this or not but I’ll have to ask him. If you can remember any games please let me know. As I stated before, there are a lot of them out there. You can even mention some playground games like Red Rover, King of the Hill, and Football with a 5 apple rush. Remember those games? Ah, those were the days. Well folks, happy reading and make sure to comment and share!