Palant, hopscotch and skipping rope: Poland's traditional games in I-PLAY
4 min read
A wooden bat, a soft ball, some chalk and a rope: meet the four playground, street and meadow games documented for the I-PLAY library by our Polish partner, the SEDA association.
A wooden bat, a soft ball, a piece of chalk to draw squares and a rope. With equipment as simple as that, you can play the four games our Polish partner, the SEDA association, has documented for the I-PLAY library. They are playground, street and meadow games, learnt from brothers, sisters, cousins and older neighbours.
Who is behind them: Stowarzyszenie SEDA
SEDA is an association based in Kraków specialising in training materials, workshops and research on sports education. It works in a network with schools, universities and special education institutions, which makes it a key partner for bringing traditional games into education.
In I-PLAY, SEDA leads two decisive work packages: policy advocacy and sustainability, with recommendations for bringing traditional games into education and sports policy, and the monitoring, evaluation and quality of the whole project. SEDA also consolidated the transnational State of the Art report, which revealed a very clear reality: in Poland, traditional sports and games are absent from the national curriculum and from teacher training.
The four games
Like the rest of the library, the Polish game sheets follow a common template and are designed for young people aged 13 to 30, with a medium level of physical intensity.
Palant
This is the jewel of the Polish contribution. A historic bat-and-ball game that combines hitting, running and team strategy: you strike the ball, run to a turning point and get back to the starting line before the opposing team retrieves the ball. It has been played for generations in school playgrounds, meadows and courtyards, and is often regarded as one of the historical forerunners of games such as baseball and rounders.
Its simple rules and minimal equipment (a wooden bat, a soft ball and a few cones) make it highly adaptable to inclusive settings. That is why it was chosen to represent Polish games in the campaign for our training of trainers.
Gra w kule (bowls game)
Each participant tries to get their balls as close as possible to a target. It is a calm game of precision that can be played seated or standing, indoors or outdoors, and it balances sessions with more intense games very well.
Gra w klasy (hopscotch)
Polish hopscotch comes in several variants, from the simplest grids to courses with more complex rules. All you need is a piece of chalk and a patch of ground. Its great advantage is that it adapts easily to different levels of skill and mobility.
Skakanka (skipping rope)
From the most basic jumps to group routines with songs, skipping is one of the most widespread playground games in Europe. The I-PLAY game sheet suggests individual and group variants so that everyone can find their place.
What is not in the curriculum survives thanks to those who keep playing it. Documenting it is how we make sure it does not depend on the memory of just a few people.
Why they matter for inclusion
Almost zero cost. Chalk, a rope, some balls, a soft ball: no school needs a budget to get started.
Different rhythms in the same session. Palant and skakanka get bodies moving; gra w kule and gra w klasy call for concentration and precision. They can be combined to suit the group.
Easy to pass on. Many people recognise these games because they have equivalents in other countries, which makes exchange easier in multicultural groups: "in my country, we play it like this".
From Kraków to Biga
For September's training of trainers in Biga, the SEDA delegation has prepared its games to present, practise and film alongside the other partners. Among the materials they asked the host organisation for was chalk to draw squares on the ground: hopscotch travels light.
What is coming next in Poland
The project plan includes a three-day traditional sports festival in Kraków, a national policy dialogue round table in Warsaw and, to close I-PLAY, the project's final conference, also in Kraków, scheduled for June 2027. The challenge, as in the other two countries, is for these games to stop being just a childhood memory and to find their way into schools and youth leisure.
Look up the game sheets for the Polish games in the library at i-play.abarka.org. And if you have a piece of chalk to hand, you can start with hopscotch right away.