A Beginner's Guide
Pickey is another game you can bet your parents played as children. Most likely, you have too. It was traditionally one of the favourite street games of children in Cork. Today, it is typically known as hopscotch and is still played widely.
An empty polish tin is needed for this game. The tin is filled with earth to give it some weight. Next, a large square is chalked on the ground and divided into six smaller squares of equal size.
These are numbered one to six in a clockwise direction from the bottom left square. Finally, just outside the first square, a semicircle is drawn. This semicircle is called 'home'.
The game is played by throwing the tin from 'home' into square one and kicking the tin from square one to square six in numerical order and back again. Does this sound a bit easy? Well, try doing it on one leg! The player has to kick the tin around while hopping.
Hop off!
Breaks are allowed in hopscotch, where you can rest both feet on the ground for a short time in a specially chosen square. However, any child who has both feet on the ground in the wrong square is 'out'. If the tin lands on a line between the two squares, or if a child hops on to a dividing line, she is also out.
If someone successfully completes the first circuit, then she throws the tin from home into square number two and kicks the tin from two to six and back. Then she repeats this process for the other squares in numerical order.