Actresses perform during the Olympic flame lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics Games at the Ancient Olympia archeological site, birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece, on April 16, 2024. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP Photo)

Colombia's Tatiana Renteria Renteria (red) wrestles Japan's Yuka Kagami (blue) in their women's freestyle 76kg wrestling semi-final match at the Champ-de-Mars Arena during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on August 10, 2024. (Photo by Punit Paranjpe/AFP Photo)

People visit the Yellow Sea forest park as the leaves of Dawn Redwoods turn red and yellow in winter in Yancheng, eastern China's Jiangsu province on December 4, 2025. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

A woman wears false flag eyelashes during the St Patrick's day parade through Dublin city centre on St Patrick's day, on March 17, 2013. (Photo by Julien Behal/PA Wire)

“Rescuers were digging through mud and debris Friday to retrieve more bodies strewn across a farming valley in the southern Philippines by a powerful typhoon. The death toll from the storm has surpassed 500, with more than 400 people missing”. – Bullit Marquez via Associated Press

Photo: Children look at the a damaged road destroyed by flash floods at the height of Typhoon Bopha in the village of Andap, New Bataan town, Compostela Valley province, December 5, 2012. (Photo by Ted Aljibe)

Indonesian activists covered with sludge from the mud volcano hold a protest during five year anniversary of the Sidoarjo mud eruption on May 29, 2011 in the subdistrict of Porong in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Kaci Nuyen 8, holds a “Kiddizoom Twist” camera during a Hamleys Christmas toy photocall at Hamleys Toy store on June 28, 2011 in London, England. The famous toy store unveiled today their “must have” toys for Christmas 2011. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

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)