Do you remember your days out in the schoolyard playing hopscotch? You know, the game painted on the asphalt — typically everywhere for you to play at every recess break.

It may be hard to believe it, but over the years, hopscotch has lost its appeal!  We’re here to ask you to change that — it's time to bring back this classic and fun game! Read on to learn more about playing hopscotch, the rules, and some variants to the original game.

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The benefits of playing hopscotch

Hopscotch is not only a fun game, but it comes with some great developmental benefits for your child. This game is good for your child's cognitive development because they’ll be using both their body, as well as their mind.

Hopscotch is far from rocket science, but the simple action of jumping from tile to tile actually helps in cognitive development. Actions your children will take are: 

• Which feet should land in which squares.
• Where and how to throw the marker.
• If they should land on one foot or two.

Children will learn to balance in this game, and gain strength since they need to be able to control their body. This game also teaches bilateral coordination — meaning your child learns how to use both sides of their body in a coordinated way.

One of the most important skills that a child can learn from hopscotch is social skills. Because, after all, hopscotch is a game that you play with others! They’ll learn to be considerate, how to take turns, and cooperate with others. 

How to play hopscotch

Did you know that there are actual hopscotch rules? For a long time, we sure didn’t. Most children like to hop along with the boxes, and that's okay — as long as they're having fun. But for the children who like to have structure and rules, here we will outline the original rules of the game.

First, you need to draw the hopscotch diagram:

• Three straight boxes (numbered 1,2,3)
• Two boxes side by side (numbered 4 and 5)
• One straight box (6),
• Two boxes side by side (7 and 8)
• Two more straight boxes (9 and 10).

Now the real fun can begin! Find something that you can use to toss as a marker like a stone, a bottle cap, anything you have laying around. Throw your marker onto your hopscotch drawing. If it lands outside any box, or on a line then you skip your turn. If it lands in a box, you begin to hop!

On the single boxes, you hop on one foot, on the double boxes you can use both feet. But you skip the box your marker is on. Once you reach 10, turn around still on your one foot, and hop your way back down. On the way back, still on one foot, pick up the marker to hand to the next player when you get back to 1.

Here's the trick: if you hop outside the lines, lose your balance, or miss a square, you go back to the beginning and miss a turn.

The first player to make it to 10 and back with no mistakes wins the game. So, the next time you have a child ask "how do you play hopscotch?" you have the answer and play along with them.

Put a fun twist on it

There are so many fun ways you can play hopscotch by bending the rules a little. You’ll still use the same hopscotch diagram, but feel free to change it up with these variants.

Topic game 

When drawing your hopscotch diagram, instead of using numbers in the squares, put a word. Each square you hop on, you have to shout out something related to it. An example of this for Halloween would be if you were to land on a square that says "witch" you could shout out "scary!" or "big nose!"

Sign it

This is a fun variant of the game where you sign your name in chalk on the box your marker has landed on. Go ahead and finish your round, then off to the next player. The game finishes once someone has their name signed on each of the 10 boxes.

Time it

If you're looking to put a little more pressure on the game, a fun twist could be to use a timer. Do this by setting a limit of 60 seconds for each player to finish their turn. If they go over the time limit, they lose their next turn!

Hop and kick

This would be fun for older children who have already developed good balance. In this version, you would kick the marker along as you hop - keeping yourself on one foot the whole way!

Hop your way to fun

Now that you know why hopscotch is great for your child's development, you know it's the perfect (and fun) way to help them grow. Along with this, you now know the rules and fun twists to put on the game; so what are you waiting for? Get out and have some fun!