A team of female cadets takes part in a tug-of-war competition at Budyonny Military Academy of the Signal Corps in St Petersburg, Russia on March 7, 2021. (Photo by Peter Kovalev/TASS/Profimedia)

A baby sloth uses his mother as a hammock while she feasts on papayas in Heredia province in Costa Rica in April 2023. (Photo by William Steele/Solent News)

Czech Republic's Jakub Mensik celebrates after winning the men's singles quarter-final match against Russia's Andrey Rublev at the ATP Qatar Open tennis tournament in Doha on February 22, 2024. (Photo by Karim Jaafar/AFP Photo)

Elephants spray tourists with water in celebration of the Songkran water festival in Thailand's Ayutthaya province, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Bangkok, April 9, 2014. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EFE)

A dog plays amid a heavy snowfall in Madrid on January 9, 2021. Heavy snow fell across much of Spain, leaving huge areas blanketed in white as Storm Filomena brought wintry weather not seen in decades to the Iberian peninsula. (Photo by Benjamin Cremel/AFP Photo)

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)

Boys play with water as they celebrate Myanmar's New Year Water Festival of Thingyan in Yangon, April 13, 2016. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A woman poses for a photograph in front of a 3D painting at HK 3D Museum in Hong Kong June 26, 2014. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)