Kim's Game

Kim's Game is a game or exercise played by Boy Scouts,''Scouting Games'' by Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell, 1921. Chapter IV
Online version at US Scouting Service
accessed July, 2008. Girl Scouts and Girl Guides, the military, and other groups, in which a selection of objects must be memorised. The game develops a person's capacity to observe and remember details. The name is derived from Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel ''Kim'', in which the protagonist plays the game during his training as a spy.

In ''Kim''

In ''Kim'', the game is called both the Play of the Jewels and the Jewel Game. Kim, a teenager being trained in secret as a spy, spends a month in Simla, British India at the home of Mr. Lurgan, who ostensibly runs a jewel shop but in truth is engaged in espionage for the British against the Russians. Lurgan brings out a copper tray and tosses a handful of fifteen jewels onto it; his boy servant explains to Kim:

They contest the game many times, sometimes with jewels, sometimes with odd objects, and sometimes with photographs of people. It is considered a vital part of training in observation; Lurgan says:

For young children

This game is commonly played with young children, either preschool or in the first year or two of schooling (age 5 and 6) as it promotes the development of memory and observation skills and can be used for learning new groups of objects, such as shapes or fruits.

When played with a young audience, the game is often changed to a simpler version where after attempting to memorise the contents of the tray, it is covered or taken away and one object secretly removed from it. Rather than being asked to list all the objects they saw on the tray, the tray is returned with one item missing and the players are asked to identify that missing object.

In Scouting

In his book ''Scouting Games'' Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, names the exercise Kim's Game and describes it as follows:

Military use

The United States Marine Corps' Scout Sniper Instructor School in Quantico, Virginia, is one establishment that teaches the game as part of its curriculum. Another is sniper training schools at Camp Lejeune, at Camp Pendleton, and in Hawaii. It is mentioned in a military glossary with the backronym "Keep In Memory".Military glossary
accessed August, 2008.

The Kim's Game is also used as a memory test in Royal Marines commando training and Royal Marines sniper training.

References

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Children's games
Scouting
Memory games