Juniors

Playing the Past

Explore what it was like to live in the past. Dream up a
character. Have fun! Live the past!
1. Decide who you are
2. Experience Daily Life
3. Have some fun
4. Create/Draw a costume
5. Become your character
Included below is a thinking outline with games and
pictures from several time periods. These are just ideas.
No need to print out all the pictures or pages. You can
draw out the games if you aren’t able to print.
 Playing the Past
1. What is your favorite time in history? (Egyptian, 14th Century, 18th Century, 1950’s…)

_____________________________________________________________________________

2. Experience Daily Life:

a. Where did they live?____________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

b. What type of houses?____________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
c. Is life different for the rich versus the poor?__________________________________

______________________________________________________________________
d. What do they eat?_____________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
e. Jobs?_________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

f. What did they write on and write with?______________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

3. Have some fun:

a. What do they do for fun? (Games, entertainment, sports, etc …..)_________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

4. Create a costume using things around your house by drawing, creating paper puppets on
sticks, or dressing a doll.

5. Become your character. Make a puppet show, comic strip or skit to act out your time
period.
 Nine Men’s Morris
Invented in the 14th Century and still popular in 18th Century
 Nine Men’s Morris
Preparation and Objective

The basic aim of Nine Mens Morris is to make "mills" - vertical or horizontal lines of three in a row.
Every time this is achieved, an opponent's piece is removed, the overall objective being to reduce the
number of opponent's pieces to less than three or to render the opponent unable to play. To begin with
the board is empty. Each player needs nine pieces (9 dimes/ 9 pennies, 9 white/9 green pony beads,
9 white/9 red paper circles, etc.)

Basic Play

Player's toss a coin to decide who will play white - white moves first and has a slight advantage as a
result. Play is in two phases. To begin with, players take turns to play a piece of their own colour on any
unoccupied point until all eighteen pieces have been played. After that, play continues alternately but
each turn consists of a player moving one piece along a line to an adjacent point.

During both of these phases, whenever a player achieves a mill, that player immediately removes from
the board one piece belonging to the opponent that does not form part of a mill. If all the opponents
pieces form mills then an exception is made and the player is allowed to remove any piece. It is only
upon the formation of a mill that a piece is captured but a player will often break a mill by moving a
piece out of it and then, in a subsequent turn, play the piece back again, thus forming a new mill and
capturing another piece.

Captured pieces are never replayed onto the board and remain captured for the remainder of the game.
The game is finished when a player loses either by being reduced to two pieces or by being unable to
move.
 21 20 1

22 19 2

23 18 3

24 17 4
Egyptian

25 16 5
Senet

26
15 6

14 7

13 8

12 9

11 10
 Equipment

A Senet board consisted of three rows of ten squares set in a rectangle. In one corner, the square
that is assumed to be the final square has a circle with a single dot, the next one along in the row,
two strokes, the next one three dots in a triangle, the next the water symbol and the fifth one along
has 3 circle and cross symbols.

House of Rebirth (Square 15)

House of Happiness (Square 26)

House of Water is (Square 27)

Each person has five pieces of contrasting hue or contrasting pattern (5 dimes/5 pennies, 5 green/5
red pony beads, 5 white/5 blue paper pieces, etc) The movements of the pieces are determined by
the throw of four split twigs with a dark face on one side and a light face on the other (binary lots).
We will replace these with drawing cards. (Number paper squares 0 – 5 one number per paper.)
Place in a cup, bowl or pile for drawing. Replace slip each time.

Preparation

Pieces are placed on the first ten squares of the first row with the colors alternating.

The Play

Players take turns to move a single piece per draw: Original:

 0 5 and an extra draw 0 no light sides 5 and an extra

turn
 1 1 and an extra draw 1 light side 1 and an extra turn
2 light sides 2
2 2
3 light sides 3
3 3 4 light sides 4 and an extra turn

 4 4 and an extra draw

A square can only be occupied by one piece at a time. If no pieces can move, the turn is passed. If a
piece lands on an opposing piece, the opposing piece is moved back to the square that the attacking
piece started the move from.

The House of Happiness cannot be passed over. Every piece must land upon it before preceding
onward. The House of water is to be avoided - when a piece lands on this square, the piece is
returned to the House of Rebirth.

Pieces can only bear off the final three squares by throwing the number indicated on the square.

The first player to bear (move) all pieces off the board wins.
 18th Century

17th Century
Egyptian

14th Century
 1950s

1920s