Monique Palomares wrote to me about the Game of Four Corners that’s played in France, Italy and elsewhere. Monique was a primary school teacher and now works with us on the French and Spanish versions of Mama Lisa’s World.

The Game of 4 Corners is for children 5 years and up and is played with 5 people.

Mark out a square using anything in the terrain… trees, walls, shrubs or anything available. Smaller kids can make a smaller square and bigger kids can use a larger area.

Each child runs to a corner of the square. Whoever fails to get a spot in a corner goes to the middle. In some versions of the game, the one in the middle counts, for example, to 5. At the count of 5, everyone runs to another corner including the player in the middle. Whoever doesn’t get a corner spot goes to the center.

Our version was as follows…

The players in the corners changed places as soon as they saw they could do it without risking being without a corner spot. For example, they might switch spots when the player in the middle was watching the others. Sometimes, we’d make a discreet sign to another player to signal, “let’s switch spots”. Sometimes player 1 wanted to change spots with player 2, but player 3 or 4 (or both) would take advantage by taking the place of player 1 or 2, which gave the player in the middle an opening to take a corner spot.

The game ends when the players have had enough!

Many thanks to Monique for explaining how to play the game of Four Corners!

-Mama Lisa