Skin and Bones: One Child's Spooky Game

Skin and Bones is one of my favorite songs to sing around this time of year. Not only is it fun and spooky, but it's an excellent song for preparing 3rd grade for low la and practicing low la with 4th grade. Well, this week, one of my 3rd graders came up with a unique game for the song that I hadn't seen before and I want to share it with you!

I love it when kids come up with games for songs – it's like watching the tradition of children's music and playground games unfold right in front of you. This game is 95% what the student came up with and 5% my own suggestions to make sure it made sense to everyone. Here it is...

The Game

One student is the "Old Lady" or "Old Man," facing away from the rest of the children, and all other children are curled up, scattered on the floor with their eyes closed (the children can also be "lyin' around" or standing as statues). The teacher taps on one child to be "the Ghost." As the song is sung, either by the teacher or whole class, the Old Lady walks around the room tapping children on the shoulder, trying to find the Ghost. At the end of the song, the child that was the Ghost, jumps up and yells "BOO!" If the Old Lady tapped the ghost, he or she wins; if the Ghost went untapped, then the ghost wins. New Old Ladies or Men and Ghosts are picked and the game continues.

And that's it! I thought the game was very creative and a lot of fun to play – the kids loved it, too. Let me know in the comments if you tried this game in your classroom and how it went!