A great way to be active, reinforce learning, and stay connected with family, friends, and neighbors during the #StayAtHome order is jumping rope.
It’s an outdoor activity; a child or adult can do alone in front of their home. Also, a jump rope is reasonably accessible, you can make one with a piece of rope.
Stay connected with family, friends, colleagues, or classmates with a jump rope challenge. Set up check-ins to stay connected and encourage each other. Here are five jump rope challenges you can create with your community.
1. Jump Jar
Create a Jump Jar, similar to the “Encouragement Jar” | Craft for Kids by PBS Parents. Make “jump cards” with different jump rope activities, and styles. After that fold the cards and put them in the decorated jar.
2. Make it Count
Do a Count By Challenge with early learners (K-3) to reinforce math concepts like counting, addition, and multiplication. Keeping time while jumping rope is also a fun activity.
3. Find the Rhythm
Make a Jump Rope playlist with songs for [a timeframe] and each day jump to a different song.
Stay connected! Collaborate to create a playlist of 2-minute songs to jump to over 20 days; each day, everyone jumps to the same song. At your check-in, ask about songs on the playlist. The questions can be related to song trivia or a person’s connection to the song. A sample playlist is embedded at the end of this post.
4. Check the Rhyme
Have kids’ write their own or remix classic jump rope songs and rhymes. Encourage them to share it.
At a check-in try a sing-along as an ice breaker. You can sing a classic song with your colleagues while jumping and see how it differs.
5. Build a robust vocabulary
Build your vocabulary with Word of the Day jump rope challenge. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has several options for adults and children to receive a new word daily.
- Daily Buzzword delivers a new word from Merriam-Webster’s Word Central – which is now reprogrammed for superior word power and language fun.
- Merriam-Webster Word of the Day offers several options to receive a new word to build your vocabulary.
- Puku is created for kids ages 8-12 who have outgrown entry-level apps. It’s available on iOS and Andriod.
The movie “Akeelah and the Bee” starring KeKe Palmer, reminds me that jumping rope is a great way to practice spelling words.
Here’s a sample 30-day Jump Rope Challenge and Jump Jar cards created by Auntie J and Zoey.
