In Thread the Needle Games, the players stand in two rows across from each other. They hold hands in an arch with the person across from them. Players go under the arch and join the end of the line once they’re through the arch. Sometimes they’re played while singing a song. There are variations on how the game is played.

Here you can see people playing a Thread the Needle Game.

Here are the lyrics to some British Thread the Needle songs…

I. Thread my grandmother’s needle!
Thread my grandmother’s needle!
Thread my grandmother’s needle!
Open your gates as wide as high,
And let King George and me go by.
It is so dark I cannot see
To thread my grandmother’s needle!
Who stole the money-box?

Midi for this version of Thread My Grandmother’s Needle

2) Thread my grandmother’s needle,
Thread my grandmother’s needle;
It is too dark we cannot see
To thread my grandmother’s needle.

Midi for this version of Thread the Needle

3) Come thread a long needle, come thread,
The eye is too little, the needle’s too big.

4) Thread the needle thro’ the skin,
Sometimes out and sometimes in.

In some places in Great Britain they played a Thread the Needle game for Shrove Tuesday. (Shrove Tuesday is the day before the start of the fasting season of Lent for Christians. Sometimes, there’s a party before the fasting – like Mardi Gras.) Here’s a song they would sing while playing Thread the Needle for Shrove Tuesday:

Shrove Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, when Jack went to plough,
His mother made pancakes, she didn’t know how;
She tipped them, she tossed them, she made them so black,
She put so much pepper she poisoned poor Jack.

Pancakes are eaten in England for Shrove Tuesday.

There’s also a Thread the Needle game that’s play in Cameroon, Africa. Check out the link to see the song.

Feel free to share any Thread the Needle songs you know from around the world in the comments below. I’d be curious if any Brits out there are familiar with any of the songs above or if they’re no longer sung.

Thanks to Monique Palomares of the French version of Mama Lisa’s World for the midis!

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa