Video
Children's Activity: Marbles
Transcript
[audio description] Against a black backdrop the National Park Service arrowhead logo stands above the words Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Against a dark gray backdrop are the words the 157th Commemoration of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain Children's Activity: Marbles.
Hello everyone and welcome to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. My name is Ranger Amanda and today I’m going to be talking to you about the children's activity of marbles. Now, currently, I’m in front of the park's visitor center, just a few feet from the actual steps of the front field leading onto the patio. I’m actually sitting on a gray woolen blanket underneath a large tree that's directly to my right and kind of in a small field area with some landscaping about. And today, like I said, I’m going to talk to you about marbles. Now marbles is actually an ancient game. And there's evidence that individuals during Roman times would actually play this. Archaeologists have found throughout the world, various small pieces of balls that are in the shape of, like what we know today as marbles, made out of clay, various precious stones, and even real marble. Even in the grave of King Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, there are actually evidence of small, kind of marble shaped items. Now in front of me I have a, I’ll say standard but not true standard, of a marble setup. So, I actually on top of this wool blanket, this gray wool blanket, I actually have a marking out with a yarn of a circle roughly three feet in diameter. Now you want your field of play to be either three feet in diameter up to 10 feet. The larger the size of the circle, the harder it is to play. Now, obviously, I’m right here by myself but you would really want at least two players, if not more. And each player ends up having one shooter marble, which is a larger size marble roughly an inch in diameter or so. And then you have a smaller marbles that are roughly half an inch in diameter give or take. Now today the marbles I have are made out of glass. This is a more modern type of marble situation or situation [chuckles], setting. And I actually have 26 of the smaller marbles in front of me but most of the time each player gets 13, in addition to their shooter marble. [siren off to left] And what we're going to be doing right now is, I’ll just show you how you set it up,. So you can just lay out the marbles and kind of toss them into the center. And then end up playing the game. Now we got to figure out, who's going first? So, what you're going to do is you'll either flip a coin to see who goes first or each player can take their shooter. And one person will go first, and they'll be at one side of that circle and they'll shoot their marble off to the side. Now if they go outside of the circle, they're the first one to go. And everybody after that, as they get closer to the other opposite side, will depend on who goes next. Now the way you actually use your shooter is you're going to take it in your pointer finger and your thumb and kind of make your pointer finger in like a little x shape where your shooter can sit properly in that finger. And then you place your thumb right behind that shooter and you line up behind the line on your first shot and you aim for the smaller marbles. Now your marbles, like I said, can be tossed out there or you can make shapes, things of that nature. Now my shooter is right here in the circle. I keep it there and the next person is going to go. So, you will not remove your shooter marble... unless. So now, I pick it up. I see there's a small marble close to the edge and I want to try to get that smaller marble outside of the circle. Once that small marble does go outside the circle, that's for me to keep and it is on as a point. You can also be tricky with it and if you see a competitor's marble close to you, you can, or their shooter, you can actually shoot theirs outside of the circle creating disadvantage for them, where they will have to start back outside of the circle. Now obviously, the individuals with the most marbles, the most small marbles out at the end of the game wins the game as a whole. Now there are a couple of variations. Obviously, you can get your marbles back if you're just playing for fun, but super competitive folks also play for keeps. Which means it doesn't matter whose marble it is, at the end of the game they get to keep all the marbles that they won. So that's something you have to keep in mind when you're playing the game of marbles. It's still a game that is played throughout the world today. There's even national championships and national competitions that is held each and every year. So, this is an old game, an ancient game, that children during the Civil War era in the 1800s would have played. But that actually dates back all the way to the Romans. So, we hope you enjoy have an entrance for, or an interest for, the game of marbles, and we hope to see you here at Kennesaw Mountain in the near future. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye!
[audio description] Against a dark gray backdrop are the words Thank you for joining us for the 157th Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. For more programs, please like and subscribe to our social media sites.
Description
[Sun 1:00 pm ET] Dating back to the times of the ancient Romans, marbles have been a popular game throughout the world. Join Ranger Amanda as she shows us how to play the game that have been enjoyed by generations. Supplies: 1. 2 or more players 2. 1 “shooter” marble (the larger marble) per player 3. 13 or more marbles per player 4. String or something to mark the playing circle on the ground
Duration
6 minutes, 20 seconds
Credit
NPS/ A. Corman
Date Created
06/27/2021
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