Playground Fun 1 - Chinese Jump rope

Stephanie had asked us if we could bring some stuff for the break times and to encourage the teachers to be more active during the break and work with the children rather than sitting and watching them play.  I put my child hat on and thought about the things I did as a child in the playground.

French skipping was a game we girls played all the time.  It involved the purchasing of a packet of elastic bands which we used to loop together to make a long chain.  Then two would stand either end with the elastic band stretched around our ankles and a third girl would do some complicated routine of jumping on, ever and either side of the elastic.  My research on the internet informed that this is actually known as Chinese Jump rope and has now been elevated to a keep-fit routine as part of the P.E program in schools.  You can now buy purpose-built versions but I think the colourful little stretch was half the fun – making sure that two of the same coloured elastic band wasn’t knotted together (for the more anal of us that is).

I put together an instruction sheet and then handed this over to the teacher to shout out commands and to the other young volunteer Fran to demonstrate the jumping; not before I put the teachers through a work-out of course!

Look at that girl jump!

Two ropes - twice the fun!

Get ready ...

Straddle out!

On!

On!