the star game!
Yesterday afternoon, after school, the children all had a snack of star fruit…and this reminded them of The Star Game, which is a game we play on our home planet all the time!
Maybe you have this game here on Earth, too?
In case you’ve never played it, here is how it goes…
First, all of the children swim out & collect a special light blue seaweed, which is very long & slender. This part in itself can take all afternoon! When they’ve gathered enough, then they weave it into a very smooth, strong twine, & knot a sea shell to one end.
They carefully wind the twine around the seashell, so it forms a ball…and then they are ready to begin…
For a simple star, you need 5 players, but for the Star Game in general, there are an infinite number of players who can join in! Sometimes we have festivals where all the children & adults play together!
Seala is the leader in this game, & she starts out with the ball of seaweed & calls the formations. Usually, we start out with the simple star…
Seala throws the ball of twine across the circle to little Joy (LB had to help her, because she is a bit tiny for this game!)
Joy throws it to Ami (with a little help)…
Ami throws it to her brother Cap…
Cap throws it to LB…
And LB throws it to Seala for a beautiful Star!
Then the process reverses itself, with each player winding up the excess twine after they catch it. The very tip has the sea shell attached, so that it can be thrown even with very little seaweed in the ball at the end…
As you can imagine, this is a fun game because then you try to do it faster…or with more complex patterns…or with 2 different colored ropes going in different directions…or with competing teams seeing who can make the most beautiful or fancy patterns! It can get very funny & confusing!
Here is another simple pattern called the comet…
What our children love to do is the constellations, & we often used to play this in school, until all the children became very familiar with the constellations surrounding our tiny planet…
Now LB & Seala are trying to learn to constellation here on Earth…so here are 3 simple ones that they learned….
…Here is constellation #1….
…and here is constellation #2 (Hint: Lon the Elephant’s trunk is posing as the North Star!)…
…and here is constellation #3 (Hint: Lon the Elephant’s trunk is again playing the part of the North Star!)…
Does anyone know what these 3 constellations are?
…I hope you can play the Star Game sometime!
love,
Clay Ball
p.s. (for answers to the 3 constellations, you can check in the Comments section!)
