Children's lives and games before

Children throughout the ages have had to work differently and games have been practiced along the working day. To start with, for example, you can listen to audio files in which children tell about their lives, which are from the basic exhibition of the National Museum of Iceland. In one of them, Helga, daughter of Jón, a printer in Hóle, tells of when she received a carved horse from her brother Brandi as a gift and she got to play with the other children in the children's room.

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Here you can listen to the audio files

• What do you think of the games?
• What are games for?
• Is it important to play?
• What are the most fun games?
• Do you need toys to play with?
• Do they all play?
• What is the difference between sports and games?
• Do students have any homemade toys?
• Are there dangerous games?
• Have you ever played with someone on the computer? Even someone who lives in another country?

There are stories of people playing football. Among other things by Agli Skallgrímsson when he was six years old. Egill did not behave very well now, but it is clear that they played the game with some kind of bat:

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“A football game was played in Hvítárvlir in great numbers during the winter; people attended to it from many parts of the province. The locals of Skalla-Grím went there for the game a lot; Thórður Granason was the best for them. Egil asked Thor to go with him to the game; then he was in the seventh winter; Thórdur left it behind him, and angered him behind him.

But when they came to the tournament, the men were divided until the game, there were and came many little brothers, and they made another game; was there and divided.

Egil was allowed to play with a boy named Grímur, the son of Hegg of Heggsstaðir; Grímur was eleven or ten years old, and strong at the same age. But when they played with each other, Egil was stronger; and Grimur did all that he could. Then Egil was angry, and lifted up the tree, and struck Grim; but Grimur took him by the hand, and drove him down a great fall, and played him badly, and said good-bye they would hurt him, if he did not come to know him. But when Egil got up, he left the game, and the boys shouted at him” (from the story of Egil).

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Ball games are of many kinds, and the rules can be different. Probably many ball games are also running games and therefore ideal for getting an outlet for exercise needs. It can be fun to have excitement and panic.

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Task: Create your own ball

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Below you can watch a video in which the museum teachers of the National Museum create balls and react to a game. After watching the video, it's time to do a task:

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Make a ball, for example, from stitched socks or wrap leather together in a tuft. Mark the space for the game and create the rules of the game. It can have more than one ball, also use something other than a foot or hand to move the ball, e.g. a ball tree. It needs to be decided in advance what the purpose of the player is so that everyone knows what the game is about, how many are in a team, when the game is over and so on. You can use ball games that you know as a role model, but sometimes it's fun to create your own game. In the ready-made Quidditch game in Harry Potter, for example, there are different balls, bats, flying brooms and the three boundaries on each side.

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Discussions:

Discussions about safety during games. Are there accident traps in racing games? Review the game you created with an eye to see if there are any accidental traps in it. Can it be changed to reduce the risk of accidents?

Articles and supporting materials

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Kids today go to the store to buy themselves balls, but years ago, other tips had to be used.

On Sarpi you can see pictures and read about balls made of sheep's clothing, see hereinand here.

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Here you can see and read about historical EM bolt!

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Previously, children's gold, that is, children's toys, were quite simple and at the same time gave rise to a playful imagination. The children's games reflected the life they knew, the unchanging country life or life by the sea. The most common children's toys were the horns and bones of the sheep as well as shells and stones that can be found outside.

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Often the children owned small estates, the sheep, horses or men. The horns were sheep. The jaws were cows, the teeth represented the excitement but the narrow-ended head. Also, the jaws served the role of horses. The chickens were dogs. Sheep were sheep and cows were cows.

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Children often had a lot of brood stored in a vase or gold jar. Shells, cocoons and fish bones were given the role of various animals. If the children did well, they were allowed to wrap the tape outside the bed and dip the top in a dye pot as soon as the garment was dyed. At that point, the whole body was colored except under the band, and then came a swift horse that became perhaps the greatest pearl in the toy collection. It was also possible to color the beds by inserting them into the manure pile, at which they turned black, green or brown (Jónas Jónasson 1961:271, Símon Jón Jóhannsson and Bryndís Sverrisdóttir 1990:99 and Stefán Aðalsteinsson 1981:50).

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In the video, the museum teachers of the National Museum compare a box of modern children and a gold coin.

On the website of the Icelandic Film Archive, Iceland on film you can find the film Spring has arrived.

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Spring has arrived is a picture from 1959. The film has a speech and is 28 minutes long.

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Here you can see a short clip from the film, Young in Spring. The website says about the video:

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“While the farmer urges the lie, the children play with shells and shells. The cows are released from the cage with the associated sprinkles and splashes. Foals, kittens and puppies.”

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Here's another video, Lambin and the Kids:

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“A boy holds a lamp while the farmer marks it. Two shepherds play a game of farm while making sure that the lambs do not go out into the field.”

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Taskforce

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1. Talk to parents and grandparents about their games and find out if children's games have changed a lot since they were little. What is similar and what is different? Let's talk about a story or an Icelandic lesson.
2. Create your own game from found objects. It can be wrappers, stones and other things from nature, crafted objects made of paper or anything else that comes to mind.
3. Lure men, curlers and animals out of fresh wood in collaboration with design and construction instructors. Create masses of all kinds of figures and equip an entire village or country town where all the people have a role. Then you can end up with an exhibition where parents get to see the results.
4. Sustainability and utilization of resources. Children in the old days played with objects found in the environment. Compare with your toys. Where do they come from, where are they made? Here you can support the project The cost of natureon page 50 of the Sustainability magazine in a series on basic aspects of education.
5. Create a selection plate/gold stack and fill with found values that can be used in games.

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Articles and supporting materials

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• Hulda Stefánsdóttir. (1975). Goldilocks, from the magazine Mind and Hand
• Ashtrays. Ash Bag Scrap Exhibition
• SpyingProbably the 17th or 18th century
• Game aloneThe Ark of the Month
• ‍Youth in the interwar years, in Sarpi
• Baldurand Horseson Sarpi
• Iceland on film. The documentary Spring has arrivedfrom 1959, 28 min., talk. Ósvaldar Knudsen's picture, Spring is Here, shows life and work in the Icelandic countryside in spring and summer. Turf is cut, it is plowed, sheep are chopped into dishes and crushed runes. There are also horses, dogs and cats on the farm. It is shown from the play of children with a catheter and shells. Young shepherds who feed the rivers are observed and driven home to a cell where they are milked. Then there is a projection of various bird species, landscapes and vegetation, foxes and shrews. The author of the film was Kristján Eldjárn. The music is based on old folk tunes but performed by Allan and Ingibjörg Blöndal Stenning.
• So you can view photos on the web Sarpur.isand enter in the search window words related to the subject, such as “children”, “game”, “farm”, or “toys”.

Children of earlier times had to work with the adults in the countryside and with seafaring. They didn't get as much free time to play as they do today, and they also didn't get to learn as much as today's kids. Their education is mostly about their work.

Children's daily life and work

“Children were put into work and responsibility early. The youngest children were allowed to spit wool, i.e. to comb it apart with their fingers before placing it in the chamois. By the age of six, children were supposed to be able to knit socks and mittens, and it was not uncommon for eight-year-olds to be supposed to deliver two sea mittens a week. The working day of children was often just as long as that of adults.” (Bryndís Sverrisdóttir, 1990, p. 3).

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Taskforce

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1. Write a story from the perspective of a child who needs to work. Check out the photos of children at work below on the page: Pictures of children at work and play. Choose a child to write about. Here are some questions to keep in mind that help with the storyline: What is the baby's name? How old is the child? Where is it at home? Who are in the child's family, adults and other children? Does the child need to wake up early? What tasks does it perform? Does that make work fun? Does that make the job desirable? Is the job difficult? Does the child have time to play? When is bedtime?
2. Examine the procedure for work. On the webThe Milk Samplingis a list of cases. What story do these cases tell about the work of the past? Create a verse that uses the words from the case or write a story in which one of the story characters uses a colloquial sentence in context.

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Discussions

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On the web Children's OmbudsmanIt is about child labor. Discuss the role of children today. What is the work of children today? When will children be given a role of responsibility today that could be called work?

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Articles and supporting materials

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• Bryndis Sverrsdottir (1990). Children's games at the turn of the century 1900. Work and play, page 3-4.
• Bryndis Sverrisdottir (1990). Children's games at the turn of the century 1900. Teacher's Notebook.
• The Family in the 20th Century. Especially suitable for middle and teenage years.
• To deepen the discussion, prisoners can be searched in the National Museum's National Museum reply lists such as Children's summer stay in the countrysideor Outdoor games. The answer lists are comprehensive and curious.

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‍Explanations of words

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Self-Sufficient Farming

‍In Iceland, the housekeepers made sure to create everything the home needed. It is called self-sufficient farming. Most people lived on a farm with animals that gave what was needed to eat and make the clothes. In some farming towns there were river boats for catching fish and seals. In Kollsvíkinga's Glossary there are detailed explanations, including what constitutes subsistence farming. See here: https://kollsvik.is/ordasjodur-kollsvikinga/175-ordhasjodhur-s

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Food processing

is the person or the one who works and receives food (and shelter) for a salary.

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Conclusion

is a person who is dependent on a municipality, but does not live with his family. Children who suffered the loss of their parents were sometimes sent to people who got paid to take them into the home. Other words for descent are local magician, hopsomagic, needy or alm-worker. See detailed explanation in Kollsvikinga Glossary:https://kollsvik.is/ordasjodur-kollsvikinga/171-ordhasjodhur-n‍

Well-known board games are, for example, penalty chess and mill explained in the Game Bulletin (pdf). An older board game, for example, is boxing, but its game rules are no longer well known. The collection of grips that was first recorded in the National Museum after its founding in 1863 was a boxing force from the 10th century.

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Taskforce

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1. Create your own board game that you can play. Create a table/game board and then find pebbles, shells or bottle caps to use as players. If you want to make your own tongs, you can do it too, for example from clay or eraser. Board games, for example, are about militarism (turning on the opponent) or juggling words. For example, your game could be about something special that you are learning at school.
2. Play boxing power on a tablet or phone. See here or here.

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Articles and supporting materials

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• Cod fish. Ágúst Ólafur Georgsson, from Gersemar and the needy assembly.
• Playbook, children's games at the turn of the century 1900.
• ‍Fistingfrom Baldur's Chamber.

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Have a good time!