Fun and Games With a Playground Ball

Sometimes I let my kids run and play freely during "recess" times in the mornings. Today, however, I wanted to teach them some fun ball rhymes which I had found in the Great Big Book of Children's Games. Someone recommended the book to me this past summer. We were sitting at swim lessons and one of the dads was leafing through the book looking for activities for that night's scout meeting. He (knowing that I homeschooled) asked me if I had ever seen the book and told me how great it was. I loved what I saw and immediately ordered it from Amazon (I have the app on my iPhone, which is a blessing and a curse!).

Today we tried a couple of playground rhymes with our trusty playground ball. It was INSTANT success for both of my kids and we had a lot of fun. This is the rhyme we did:

Charlie Chaplin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance.
This is what he taught them:
Heel, toe, and over you go!
Heel, toe and over you go!
Heel, toe and over you go!

You bounce the ball up and down with the beat of the rhyme for the first three lines. When you get to "Heel, toe and over you go!" you tap the ground with your heel, then your toe. On "over you go" you pass the ball under your leg. That was an easy skill for my nine year old, but for my five year old it took some coordinating. We had fun with this one, and then I taught them two other rhymes from the book.

I love rhymes like this because you are getting in a little poetry, a little music (steady beat), and some physical education - not to mention a big dose of fun!

The book also includes card games, mind games, word games, pencil and paper games, tabletop games, sidewalk games, etc... I think I'm going to get my money's worth out of this one!

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