Socially Distanced Games for Children – Free Downloadable Skipping Games Booklet

Skipping increases mental, physical and emotional health. Surely, that makes it the most important game in the playground!

Long rope skipping is especially helpful in these fraught, socially distanced times. You just need a midday supervisor and one other child at the end of a long rope – and I promise you, you will have a (distanced) queue a mile long wanting to have a go.

Do any of you remember skipping when you were at school? I have a memory of joining a long line, shuffling forward, shuffling a bit more … finally getting there and everyone chanting “January, February, March… and OUT”. I never seemed to get past March. Other people could do the whole 12 months!

There is a lot of research and you can look on any websites to see how and why skipping is so good for you but here is a little recap for you.

• Skipping requires stamina and skills or ‘plyometrics’, which improves cardio-respiratory fitness, flexibility and co-ordination. (The British Heart Foundation organised the first Jump Rope for Heart in 2002).
• The complexity of the movements stimulates whole brain functioning, requiring both sides of the brain to work together, thus heightening cognitive function and helping the brain to work better.
• Skipping is very sociable. It can require people to sing and chant together, wait patiently together, accept mistakes and move on. Everyone is included and everyone is working to beat their own best.

You can proceed from very (socially distanced) simple skipping games to games of great agility. So for example, for very young children, you can just swing the rope gently from side to side and sing the old classic

Sausage in the pan,

Sausage in the pan,

Turn it over,

Turn it over,

Sausage in the pan.

A more complex one would be

‘All in together kids,

Never mind the weather kids,

When you hear your birthday,

Please jump in… ‘(then everyone chants the months of the year)

We have compiled 20 FREE skipping games- social-distancing games for children which I hope will bring you a lot of fun.

I know your year groups are in their own Bubble Area … but that doesn’t mean you can’t have different zones within that area and I would always insist on having a Skipping Zone.

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