Recommended Age: 2 and ½ years and onwards
Level of Parent Involvement: Low, mostly preparation, modelling and supervision. Once the child has been shown encourage independent repetition
Prerequisites
- Beneficial but not essential that the child can recognise numerals 1-6
Materials
- Chalk (for outdoors) OR
- Painters tape/masking tape (for indoors)
Preparation
- Using the chalk or tape, make a hopscotch grid
- Number the grid from 1-6
Steps
- Invite the child letting them know you are going to play a game
- Direct the child to the space you will be using (either indoors or outdoors)
- Ask the child what they notice about the hopscotch grid, encouraging them to call out any numbers they recognise
- If the child doesn’t recognise any you can let them know what they are (this is 1 this is 2 etc)
- Invite the child to stand behind you at the top of the hopscotch grid and let them know it’s your turn and you will show them how to do it then they can have a turn
- Begin by hopping on one leg onto the square marker one, then jumping onto the squares marked 2 and three one leg on each square
- Then hop onto the square marked 4
- The jump onto the two squares marked 5 and 6, one leg on each square
- Jump off and turn to the child
- Walk around the hopscotch grid and stand behind the child letting them know it’s now their turn
- Continue taking turns with the child or leave the child to play independently
Variations
- The child may throw a small stone onto a number, then jump or hop to that number and back.
- The child may start from 5 and 6 and do the hopscotch counting backwards
Note
- This exercise does not have to involve numbers if the child is not ready, you can make a blank hopscotch grid and still play the same way, introducing numbers at a later stage
