In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, female impersonator Gary Marion, known as “Sushi”, sits in a large replica of a women's high-heel shoe while dangling above Duval Street, late Tuesday, December 31, 2019, in Key West, Fla. The Red Shoe Drop is one of six offbeat Key West warm-weather takeoffs on New York City's Times Square “ball drop” set to celebrate the beginning of 2020. (Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP Photo)

A fire-eater of the “Diables de Terrassa” performs during Sitges' little “Festa Major”, “Santa Tecla” in Sitges, Spain on September 19, 2016. This celebration brings together some of Catalonia’s most emblematic festive traditions. The central axis of the celebrations is the traditional parade, made up of “big-head” carnival figures and characters who dance to music played on different traditional instruments. One of the most popular events is the Correfoc or fire-running, which is also the closing event of the fiesta. The people run and jump over characters dressed up as devils and dragons, carrying fire. (Photo by Matthias Oesterle/ZUMA Press/Splash News)

A female soccer player controls a ball during a training session at the Golab Trust Sport Complex in Kabul March 10, 2014. Despite decades of conflict in Afghanistan, and several recent militant attacks, the country's capital Kabul is home to a vibrant youth scene of musicians, artists, athletes and activists. Shopping malls and cafes stand in the city, which is nonetheless beset by infrastructure problems and instability. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)

Brazilian natives of the Pareci tribe play head football with a hand-made ball for a demonstration, during the first day of the International Games of Indigenous Peoples, in Cuiaba, state of Mato Grosso, on November 10, 2013. 1500 natives from 49 Brazilian ethnic groups and from another 17 countries are gathering in Cuiaba until November 16 to compete in some 30 athletic disciplines, many of their own. (Photo by Christophe Simon/AFP Photo)

Female indigenous players vie for the ball during the final match of Peladao, the amateur football tournament, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, on November 24, 2013. Peladao is known as the biggest amateur football tournament in the world, with more than 1000 teams competing in various categories since 1973. The indigenous category was created in 2005 and eight teams participated this year. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

Israeli couples attend a “trash the dress” event at a paint-ball venue in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, December 25, 2015. Twelve Israeli couples wore their wedding outfits once again on Friday as they took part in a video clip where they deliberately ruined their wedding outfits, in keeping with the trendy wedding style photography dubbed “trash the dress”. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Iraqi children play with a ball on a street blocked with burning tyres, amid a general strike in the southern city of Basra, on November 25, 2019. The demonstrations rocking the capital and Shiite-majority south since October 1 are the biggest grassroots movement the country has seen in decades. Sparked by outrage over rampant government corruption, poor services and lack of jobs, they have since gone straight to the source: calling out the ruling system as inherently flawed and in need of a total overhaul. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)