Wednesday 12 September 2007

ABC WEDNESDAY

H IS FOR HOPSCOTCH
abc wednesday

Hopscotch was a popular street game in Victorian times. It originated in Britain during the early Roman Empire. It was used to train Roman foot soldiers as it was thought this would improve their footwork.The word "hopscotch" derives from the words "hop" and "scotch" meaning "scratched line". The game has many different names depending on where you live and different forms of the game are played all over the world (in Scotland it was known as ‘peever’ or ‘beds’) and the rules vary from area to area.


This is how I used to play as a child......first the Hoscotch pattern was drawn with chalk


Throw a stone onto the first square then hop over the square and land on two feet.
If there are two squares side by side, put a foot in each square.
If it is a single square, they hop onto the square.
Then hopscotch up to the top, turn and hopscotch back down.
When you come to the square with the stone on it, pick it up, then hop or jump onto that square.

If you throw your marker onto a square and it misses…the other person gets a shot.
If you stand on a line or put both feet down, when you are meant to be hopping, the other person gets a shot….and you have to repeat that number.

Sometimes a "rest area" is added on one end of the hopscotch pattern where the player can rest before hopping back to the beginning.


These photos are of the Hopscotch area at our local school...rather different to the the chalk drawn patterns I used to play on.


Did you used to play Hopscotch...and did you call it Hopscotch or something different??


25 comments:

CG said...

I never understood hopscotch! we used to do something called Frech skipping. We made a very long loop out of coloured elastic bands and a girl would stand inside the loop at each end stretching it out. then a third girlwould do sort of complicated skipping in and out of the elastic...weird!

bidarlah said...

oh...i hv not play hopscotch for years now! hving said tat, i hv not seen any now-in schools or parks. wonder wat kids today play?

and cg: we played skipping with rubber bands too.

Anonymous said...

Hi, used to play that when we were at school, many eons ago, dont see it so much today. Most kids would get a rollocking for making a mess on the path

Mike said...

I vaguely have memories of chalk drawn hopscotch squares drawn on pavements. Fantastic idea for H.

mrsnesbitt said...

Oh I remember playing this, and walking on the pavement, trying to jump over the cracks! Boy did we know how to live!

Ali said...

Brilliant 'H' for ABC today.

What memories! I used to play a lot of hopscotch, loved it.

CG, french skipping, hell yeah, another favourite playground game. At home, I would play on my own or with my sister, both/one end of the elastick being supported by the high back dining chairs!!

kml said...

I love your H - it brings back such memories of childhood!

Jean M Fogle said...

WE played hopscoth a lot growing up. My dad was military so we moved all over the US but everywhere we lived we played.
Great post !
to answer you question about my abc post to SAlty Dogs
hugh hot tongue hanging
Hitching a hind Leg
Howdy to the Husky
Jean

Dina said...

We used to play hopscotch , ours was set up slightly different, but still it was great fun!

Akelamalu said...

I used to love Hopscotch!

I'd love to play it now but I don't think I can hop on my old knee and my metal one! :)

dot said...

Ruth, I love this post! My hopscotch was just like yours and I loved playing it. Sometimes we would play movie star hopscotch and that was fun too. It's so sad that kids don't play this good game any more.

Gledwood said...

wow i never understood the rules either!

Gledwood said...

who are all these new people commenting?!?!?!?! i've never heard of any of them... i'm going to coast over and see who they are...

haha!

Anonymous said...

I love hopscotch. I want to grab the chalk and go outside and do it right now.

Unknown said...

Hopscotch was a favourite when we were kids as was french skipping.

Hin Man said...

A very clever 'H' post that I bet no one would have thought of. It is something to remind us of simple things in life that last a lifetime of good memory

Julia Phillips Smith said...

I played the hopscotch you showed first. I can't even fathom the new version in the photograph. When I walk my dog in my neighborhood, we pass over chalk renditions of the traditional pattern. So kids are still playing it!

Neva said...

What a great "H" picture!!

Annie said...

I played hopscotch many many times as a child. It was such pleasure. Thank you, Ruth, for bringing it back to mind.

Max-e said...

Hi Ruth
I have learn't something today. Hopscotch was very popular with the girls, a million years ago, when I was at school. The boys would never play a girls game - maybe if someone told us it was would have become more adept at our footwork

david mcmahon said...

Hi Ruth,

Your lance a lot comment was the best I've ever seen! Bravo!

Yes, we used to call it hopscotch when I was growing up in India - but then again, India was British territory until 1947, so that's not surprising.

Didn't know about the Roman origins, though ...

Keep smiling

David

Yolanda Elizabet Heuzen said...

Yes I played it too when I was a little girl. My hinkelbaan was a bit different from yours; number 1 and 2 where next to each other, above that number 3 on its own and the rest was pretty similar except that it went up to number 10. The rules were the same too. In The Netherlands we call hopscotch hinkelen.

Fun post Ruth!

Mauigirl said...

Your form of hopscotch was exactly the same as the one I used to play. When I was 11, my friends and I went through a hopscotch craze, and played it constantly! To this day if I see a kid has drawn a hopscotch board on the road I have to hop on it! It doesn't happen very often anymore, but I saw one a few weeks ago. It sure brought back memories!

Shaz said...

Nice to see the school keeping up old traditional games x

Anonymous said...

I played your hopscotch not the one in the playground now. Clever 'H' photo.

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