The first thing about jacks that might surprise you – tons of kids are interested in learning about and playing the game! One mother remarked, regarding her son with ADHD, that she has never seen him concentrate on one task for son long – but this kiddo was determined to learn how to pick up jacks!
If the older generation is any indication, we learned that playing jacks is like riding a bike – these grandparents still knew how to snatch up the whole pile before that ball bounced twice. We saw intergenerational bonding. And we saw hope in playing games that involve interacting with people right in front of you instead of through a screen.
We are inspired to take this idea of retro gaming even further! We are currently drawing up plans to see if we can promote these kinds of game-based community interactions in any of our region’s schools. Stay tuned and we’ll report on our progress. In the meanwhile, here are some images from our inaugural weekend handing out jacks
BloomStat Foundation 