Ring Games and Singing Games for Children

A ring game is a song with a game inside it. The children stand in a ring, usually holding hands, and move round while they sing. The words tell them what to do next: stop and act out a job, drop to the ground, make an arch, or pick a partner. Often one child stands in the middle. These 35 rhymes are played that way, according to their own pages. 16 of them cite Alice Bertha Gomme's The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a collection of traditional children's games. Each page has the full words, how the game goes and what the old words mean.

Walk, spin and act. In Ring Around the Rosie the children hold hands, walk in a circle and fall down and laugh. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush walks in a ring, then stops to act out a chore, and Oats and Beans and Barley Grow stops to act out the farmer sowing and looking over the fields. Looby Loo is played holding hands in a circle, skipping round, and The Muffin Man walks round in a circle. Sally Go Round the Moon spins round as fast as you dare and then changes direction, and Chicamy goes round, down the road and round again. In Right Elbow In a different body part goes in and out of the ring each verse.

Everyone drops down. All the Soldiers in the Town is the shortest ring game on this list: two lines, then everyone bops down together. In Here We Go Around, Around the children dance fast and drop to the ground on the last line, and in Round and Round Went the Gallant, Gallant Ship the ring is a ship and all go down together when the rhyme says it sinks. The Leaves Are Green, the Nuts Are Brown also ends with the children dropping to the ground.

A child in the middle. In Did You Ever See a Lassie one child invents a movement and everyone copies it. Garden Gate puts a child inside the ring, asking each neighbour for the key and trying to break out through the clasped hands. Lazy Mary, Will You Get Up has the circle trying to tempt a sleepy Mary out of bed, and Jolly Fishermen has two children in the centre who each pick another so that four sing the last lines. Here I Go Round the Rules of Contrary has a leader calling hold fast or leave go, and the whole ring does the opposite.

Arches, partners and dances. In Here Comes a Bluebird the circle makes arches with raised hands, the bluebird flies in and out of the windows and then picks a partner for a little dance. Green Grow the Leaves marches or dances in a ring and then picks partners. The Ball of Primrose is a ring dance with ribbons that turns into a waltz in pairs, and Here Comes a Duke ends with the ring dancing together. Click, Clock, Cluck and Nettles Grow in an Angry Bush are ring songs in which a single word or action changes from verse to verse, and in Mary Mixed a Pudding Up the whole ring claps.

French and Spanish ring songs. Sur le Pont d'Avignon is a French ring dance, Il court, il court, le furet is a French ring game, La Monaco goes round in a ring and then forms a chain, and La mist'en laire adds an instrument in each verse. Arroz con Leche is the Spanish song on the list. Passing games. In Hunt the Squirrel, My Hand Burns Hot and I've a Glove in My Hand one child walks round the outside of the ring with an object and drops it behind a player, and King Henry has a girl in the centre trying to catch one on the outside while the ring sings.

Many of these are on the lists for circle time songs and clapping games as well. This page keeps only the ones played as a ring.