Hopscotch is a great way of integrating early numeracy skills (counting) with physical development like balance, hopping on one leg and hand eye coordination plus also teaching social skills such as turn taking, patience, encouraging others.
Kate's first hopscotch game with the children didn't go so well because Kate did not join in the play, but Hopscotch is a good opportunity in the future for Kate to practice being a facilitator and a player at the same time. It is important in a game like hopscotch to teach the children the rules of the game, to show them how it is done and then to join in the play and manage the turn taking etc until the children can do it for themselves. It is more an intentional teaching game than a spontaneous one, unless of course a child asks to play or is drawing on the ground with chalk or throwing stones - you might follow this interest and suggest to them that a fun thing to do would be to play hopscotch!
What you Need?
1. Draw the grid
To start, grab some chalk and draw a hopscotch grid with the numbers 1 - 10
This one is great as it has a "Start" box so the children know where to stand. Make sure the boxes are even and there is enough room for the children to hop in.
2. Find Throwing Stones
A great way to involve the children is to have them go on a treasure hunt to find their own throwing stone. They might like to try to write their name on the stone in texta or you could help them do that.
How to Play
Have the children line up or sit in a line near the hopscotch grid and explain the children will each take a turn on the hopscotch
You will need to explain the rules to the children:
Stand on the start box
Throw your stone aiming for a number
When the stone lands on a number, you hop on one leg on the single numbers and two legs at the same time where there are two numbers
When you get to the number before where the stone is, you must bend down and pick up the stone before you keep going all the way up to 10 and then back down to START. This works on the children's balance!
Then it is the next person's turn.
There are lots of different versions of hopscotch eg: jump over the stone on the way up and then pick it up on the way back OR each turn aim for a certain number and go up a number each turn.
A great extension to the game is to involve the children in drawing the grid with chalk and teach them about shapes (squares). You could even set up a stone painting station so the children could really make their stones their own.
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