A children's game which is grand fun. To play, assemble a group of children (or Everythingians, but it's tough to play in the Chatterbox) and have them sit on the floor in a circle. One kid is selected to be "It" and he or she walks around the circle, touching each child on the head and saying "Duck."

This continues for as long as the sadistic toddler can draw out the suspense, at which point he touches someone on the head, says "Goose," and starts running. The Goose leaps to his or her feet and chases "It" around the circle. If the Goose can tag "It" before he can sit in the Goose's former spot, then "It" is out and has to sit in the middle of the circle. If "It" is able to make it around the circle and sit down without being tagged, the Goose becomes "It" and starts the cycle all over.

Eventually, only one kid will be left outside of the circle, and that kid is declared the winner. Hooray! Now who wants juice and cookies?
A children's game played by a group sitting in a circle, facing inward. A single person stands outside and walks around the circle, touching the head of each person as they walk by and saying, "Duck". Sometimes, whenever he feels like it, the person walking around will touch a head and yell, "GOOSE!", at which point the goose gets up and runs around the circle after the toucher. The toucher attempts to completely run around the circle and sit in the goose's place. If he succeeds, the goose is now the toucher, and must walk around the same way. If the toucher is caught by the goose, the toucher sits in the middle of the circle. If another toucher is caught, the original does not leave the circle, making this a zero sum game.

Games at the start usually look like this (Were you in a plane that has the capability for aerial photographs, as well as to turn them into bad ASCII art):

         d d    T       ----------------------
       d     d          | T = Toucher        |
      d       d         | d = Duck           |
       G     d          | G = Goose          |
         d d            | f = Former toucher |
                        ----------------------
In the middle of a game, from this same plane, it would look like this:
         d  d   T
        d f  d
        d  f G
         d  d
At the end of the game, the last duck and the last goose are the winners.

There seems to be very little point to the game, other than to have little kids run around a lot, and to remind them that they cannot always be the center of attention. Still, it is an enjoyable way to spend a half-hour with some 2nd graders.


Metacognizant informs me that when she used to play it, the person in the middle would go back to the outer circle when someone else came to the middle. This made sure that "no one would sit in the middle of the circle for too long, but there was no way for anyone to win either."

Angela informs me that, "when I played this, the middle was called 'the pickle jar'".

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