JACKS OR FIVE STONES

You play this game with small rounded stones or with plastic or metal jacks. (See photo left)

To decide who starts, a player throws five jacks into the air with one hand and tries to catch as many as possible on the back of the same hand. The jacks that were caught are then thrown up again from the back of the hand where they came to rest and as many as possible are caught in the palm of the same hand. The other players do the same and the player who catches the most jacks starts, play continuing in a clockwise fashion.

The first player starts the game by throwing the five jacks on the ground and then picking up the ball.

The player throws the ball up, picks up one jack with the same hand and then catches the ball before it hits the ground. The jack is then put into the other hand. This is repeated until all the jacks have been picked up. The player then throws the jacks back on the floor and starts again, but this time, two jacks must be picked up each time except for the third and final throw when, obviously, only one jack is picked up. Once this is achieved successfully, the player starts again but this time with three jacks and then again with four jacks and finally the ball is thrown up and all five jacks are picked up at once before the ball is caught.

When the player misses the ball or does not manage to pick up the required number of jacks, the turn immediately finishes and the next player has a try. The player who manages to progress furthest in the sequence of throws wins.

Five Stones (alternative version)

This is an older version of the previous game.  5-stones was played with stones bought from a shop - these stones were cubes of varying colours - like dice, but made of stone. This is how it was played :-

It started like jacks with  

Ones - tossing one stone in the air and picking up 1 stone

Twos - picking up 2 stones

Threes - picking up 3 stones

Fours - picking up 4 stones

Creeps - one stone was placed on the back of the hand, the others picked up between the fingers and then the 1 stone tossed in the air, caught in the palm of the hand and then the remaining 4 gathered into the palm - not as easy as it sounds)

Cracks - the stone being caught had to crack against the stone picked up.

No cracks - the reverse of cracks in that the stones couldn't make a noise as one was caught.

Little titch - the stones that had been picked up were retained in the palm as the subsequent stones were picked up - that meant that finally 3 stones were in the palm as 1 was tossed in the air to be caught and the 5th picked up from the ground.

Big titch -  the stones that had been picked up were tossed in the air as the subsequent stones were picked up - that meant that finally 4 stones were tossed in the air to be caught as the 5th was picked up.