Hopscotch

Hopscotch

Materials:    

           Hopscotch Diagram                 Chalk

           Hopscotch bags (12)                Foam Hopscotch Kit (10 squares, 2 circles)

Classroom Time: 1 class period

Objectives:

Student learns the rules and processes involved in playing hopscotch.

         Student develops coordination hopping on one foot, and into a specific area.

         Student learns that the game has a particular order, like many things in life.

Teacher’s introduction to the activity:

Hopscotch is a sequential, detail oriented game that involves problem solving, physical education, and promotes positive social interaction. Tell the students that hopscotch played many years ago in one room schoolhouses, mostly with a circle in the dirt. According to J.W. Crombie, Esq., it was a prominent game in England in the 1600s and later, handed down from generation to generation. However, it is even older than that! In Ancient Britain during the Roman Empire soldiers wore full armor while training on hopscotch courses over 100' long. They did it to improve their footwork, like football players today. Children copied what they saw and turned it into a game. Hopscotch has been given many names, among them “Potsie”, “Halliwell”, Piko”, in France “Marelles”, in Germany “Templehupfen”, the Netherlands “Hinklebaan”, “Ekaria Dukaria” in India, “Pico” in Vietnam, and last “Rayuela “ in Argentina.

Instruction: 

• A starting line is drawn 6 inches behind square one.

• A dome shaped space known as the “resting area" can be placed after square 10, where players turn around after square 10.

• A player tosses a stone onto square one. The player follows the grid hopping (1 foot on the single squares and 2 feet one on adjacent square) and must hop over the square holding their stone.

• The player then turns around, repeats the same hopping pattern, pauses on the square just before the square with the stone, picks up the stone and then hops on the remaining squares.

• This process is repeated again, throwing the stone on the next highest numbered box, then hopping on the squares in the same manner.

• The players turn ends; if the stone does not land on the appropriate square, a player loses their balance and place 2 feet on a single square, a line is hoped/stepped on, a wrong square is hopped, a square is hopped that has a stone, both feet were placed in a square or the stone was not picked up.

Variations:

1. Instead of numbers, use letters, shapes, or colors.

2. Children often make up songs as they play; create a song used while children jump.

3. Play as a team.

Crombie, J. W. (1886). History of the Game of Hop-Scotch. Journal of the Antropological Institute of

         Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 15, 403-408.