How to Play Stone Jacks

Put the stones in your palm. For this game you should have no more than five stones. Toss the stones up in the air and catch as many as you can on the back of your palm. Hold them there for a moment and then toss them up again, catching them in your palm again. Whoever does this with the most stones goes first.

Toss out an appropriate number of stones on the ground. The game is typically played with 1 to 15, but you can use as few or as many as you want. To make the game harder, toss the stones farther away from one another.

Throw one stone up in the air, pick up the stones on the ground and then catch the tossed stone before it hits the ground. You can either pick up the stones one at a time, one throw per stone, or you can throw the stone and then snatch all the other stones at once, depending on the rules you're using.

Lay the stones back down and hand the lead, tossing stone to another player. The goal is for each person to achieve the same feat one after the other. Those who can't do it are out, until there's only one victor. Each player has to throw the lead stone and pick up the other stones in the same way, accomplishing the same feat. Each time a full round is completed, you lay down more stones to make the next round harder.