How to Do Intry Mintry

In order to play many childhood games like Kick the Can and Hide ‘n Seek you must first choose one person to be “it.” The Intry Mintry chant commonly used today is only a small part of a longer poetic story describing how children were using the rhyme to count out and have fun on a summer’s day.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Arrange your group into a circle and choose a starting point within it. Each person should hold a fist out towards the center of the circle. This will work best with at least 4 people but having more will be more fun.
2. Begin saying the Intry Mintry chant with the starting person tapping the next person’s fist with each beat of the poem. Each line of the Intry Mintry rhyme has 4 beats. On each beat a person will tap the next fist. The poem goes like this: "Intry-mintry, cutry-corn; Apple-seed and apple-thorn; Wire, brier, limber, lock; 12 geese in a flock; Some flew east, some flew west, some flew over the cuckoo’s nest."
3. Eliminate the person whose fist is tapped on the last beat of the poem. This is the person who “flew over the cuckoo’s nest” and can leave the circle. This person is not “it.”
4. Continue saying the chant and eliminating people from the circle one at a time. When there is only one person left that person is “it” and you can go on and begin your other game.