50 Things All Kids Should Do Before They're 12 (playing, son, school)

[Cav Scout wife]

Originally Posted by no kudzu

what is conkers and sledging? maybe I've done these things and don't know it.

Didn't know what those two were or this one: abseiling.

Other than the canoing (since we live by bad canoe water) we've pretty much done all of the 50.

Good list!

[stan4]

Must have been a damn lucky kid - done almost all of them.
Not that geocache thing. Dunno if it was around in the 80s.

Conkers is a violent little game where you take the conkers and put 'em on a string and try to bust the other person's conker.

[Zimbochick]

I was very fortunate that the schools I went to did many of these things. To graduate from elementary school you had to pass a lifesaving course and a wilderness survival course. Both valuable and fun adventures. Abseiling was part of the latter.

Conkers can get a bit rough depending on the players, that's true, but it is almost a rite of passage.

[somebodynew]

Just added something to do with my 11 year old!

[eastwesteastagain]

This is such a fun list! We have only done a few thus far but I look forward to doing many more as the kids get older!

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by Zimbochick

Conkers is a children's game played using the seeds of horse-chestnut trees. The game is played by two players, each with a conker (seed) threaded onto a piece of string, they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks (if you are good/mean your opponents hand will hurt afterwards).

Sledging = sledding

Thanks. I was going to ask the same q uestions. I thought sledging might be sledding, but conkers had me stumped. We did used to gather horse chestnuts, though, and tried to thread them to make a necklace.

Still not sure what abseiling is.

I like "frogspawn". That one was easy to figure out--tadpoles or pollywogs!

[Zimbochick]

Abseiling = rappelling

[JustJulia]

More for your list:

Race leaf boats in a creek
Know how to do a cartwheel or handstand
Blow a soap bubble bigger than your head
Be in a parade
Chase fireflies at dusk
Watch a sunrise
"Play" with echoes in a canyon
Learn the names of flowers or birds you see in your yard
Make a whistle out of grass or (I never could do this) a raisin box
Wish upon a dandelion
Catch some good air on a snow saucer (more fun than sleds IMO but you can't steer so well)
Plant a tree
Learn basic origami (crane, box, "cootie catcher")
Go barefoot all weekend

[hypocore]

Since this list is from Europe, I discovered many things I'd never heard of.....conkers, sledging, bouldering...not things common in Texas.

However, most of the rest of the list my kids have done. My kids love to be outdoors and they are free to get as dirty as they want in the process. :-)

I do have to say though that #16 needs to be removed from the list as that is one very dangerous activity unless you simply cover someone with sand instead of actually burying them.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by hypocore

Since this list is from Europe, I discovered many things I'd never heard of.....conkers, sledging, bouldering...not things common in Texas.

However, most of the rest of the list my kids have done. My kids love to be outdoors and they are free to get as dirty as they want in the process. :-)

I do have to say though that #16 needs to be removed from the list as that is one very dangerous activity unless you simply cover someone with sand instead of actually burying them.

Good point. What flashed through my head when I read that was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock wherein medical students play a prank on one of their friends who drinks too much by injecting another guy with a medication that makes it appear he is not breathing, then set up a scenario so that the drunk wakes up and thinks he killed the drugged sleeping guy. The prank backfires when the drunk wakes up, thinks he killed the other guy, and buries him on the beach.