How To Play Jacks

Sit on the floor or ground facing your friend; if there are more than two of you playing, sit in a circle.

Decide who goes first. You can flip a coin or play eenie, meenie, minie, mo, for example.

Let’s say you’re up first. Gently toss all the jacks onto the floor so they scatter in front of you.

Now toss the ball into the air, pick up a jack, and catch the ball—all with only one hand! You’re only allowed to let the ball bounce once. This is called ‘onesies.’

Put the jack you just scooped up in your other hand and repeat the game, picking up one jack at a time, until you’ve grabbed all 10.

If you can’t pick up the jack and catch the ball before it hits the floor again, it’s the next player’s turn and he or she starts over with all 10 jacks.

When you’ve grabbed all 10 jacks, move up to the next level: ‘twosies.’ Pick up the jacks 2 at a time, still with only one hand and before the ball bounces twice, until you’ve captured them all.

Keep on playing, increasing the number of jacks you pick up each time.

If you can’t pick up the right number of jacks, it’s the next player’s turn.

Each time it’s your turn again, start where you left off. If you messed up on ‘sixies,’ for example, start by picking up 6 jacks, and so on.

The winner is the person who gets to ‘tensies’ by picking up all the jacks at once and catching the ball. And once you can do it, you might want to challenge your mom to a match!