On the discussion of "Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?":

I am a 44-year-old male from Colorado, US.

I learned this clapping rhyme at church camp when I was about 8-10 (?). I don't remember who introduced me to it, but it was picked up by my age group of kids and we played it every year--and taught it to the younger kids--for at least 10 years. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I remember teaching it to kids at church camp in Missouri and Iowa, too. We probably played this as old as high school, but I don't think I've done so since.

We played it sitting down. The leader would start and it would bounce around the circle randomly until someone missed their number. At that point the repetition would stop, that person would go to the end of the line and everyone would get renumbered. The trick was to get to the head of the line and stay there.

We did a similar, but much faster version, too. (But no food mentioned). The first three people were "Saint Peter", "Saint Paul", and "Saint John". They were succeeded by "Number 1", "Number 2", etc. This clapping game was very simple: "My name" on the first two claps, followed immediately by "someone else's name" on the second two beats. At a tempo of about 200-250 bps.

BB,
Hutch