a peek inside the fishbowl

14 Sep, 2007

How to play hopscotch

Posted by andrea in: - Archive of playground games| Easy ways to make kids happy

Hopscotch

Supplies needed: chalk or sidewalk paint, stones/bottlecaps or bean bags. Flat stones are best. They don’t roll! 

Playing hopscotch is easy. First, make the paint to create your hopscotch grid.

The one above was made with equal parts cornstarch and water and a few drops of electric blue food colouring. But chalk works just fine too.

If you’re the first player you throw your marker on the number one (the closest square), hop over it, moving up to ten, hopping on each square. All hops are done on one foot for each “single” square, unless there are two squares are side by side, in which case you hop down on both feet. Once you get to ten you must turn around and hop back again, carefully bending down to pick up the marker on the way back. You can’t lose your balance and you must always remain on that one foot.

For your next turn you need to throw your marker so it hits the #2 and so on.

You lose your turn if your marker doesn’t hit your intended square, if you lose your balance on the hopscotch grid, or if you forget to hop over your square.

p.s. just for fun, try searching Flickr for the term “hopscotch” and you’ll get a lot of sweet pics.

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5 Responses to "How to play hopscotch"

1 | Lee

September 14th, 2007 at 6:13 pm

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Thanks for the sidewalk paint recipe! Someone gifted us with a pre-made s/w paint and I just couldn’t get my head around buying more!

2 | Lee

September 15th, 2007 at 3:28 pm

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Curious. I wonder if it’s a regional thing, but we’ve always done 1-3 as singles, 4-5 double, 6 single, 7-8 double, 9 single and 10 semi-circle.

3 | Guest Post: The Games We Play | Family Jewels - Canadian Family Blog

April 2nd, 2009 at 10:31 am

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[...] of the other games we played was hopscotch. As kids we used ordinary chalk but nowadays we make our own sidewalk paint. The formula is very [...]

4 | Space to play >> a peek inside the fishbowl

April 13th, 2009 at 8:58 am

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[...] hockey sticks, buckets and shovels, a plasma car, bikes and scooters, sidewalk chalk (sometimes we make our own!), and balls of all kinds. Now that I am thinking about it I’ve realized there are a few [...]

5 | How to play with your kids >> a peek inside the fishbowl

February 6th, 2010 at 3:41 pm

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[...] Make your own sidewalk paint and go crazy on your driveway. Draw a track for the trike. Design a new kind of hopscotch grid. Decorate the sidewalk with numbers and letters. [...]

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My name is Andrea and I live in the Westboro area of Ottawa with my husband Mark and our two daughters Emma (10) and Sarah (8). I work as a freelance writer, web content manager, and family photographer. I've been blogging in one form or another since 1999. I have a passion for words (on their own or strung together), the arts, great design, healthy living, family travel, good food, and sharing the best of Ottawa for parents and kids. The Fishbowl is my whiteboard, water cooler, and journal ... all rolled into one.

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