Having fun with the ball.
Very popular, especially among girls, ball games at this age.
Ball games were known in antiquity. Odysseus, thrown by the sea waves on the shore of the island of Scheria, saw Nausicaa, daughter of the Fealk king, playing ball with her friends. The girls used a round stone as balls.
In Athens in the 5th century B.C.E. "football matches" between the two teams were played in the presence of numerous spectators. The ball was a stone, which players hit and passed each other with long curved sticks similar in shape to hockey sticks in use today.
In ancient times, Egyptian children played with balls made of leather and stuffed with bran. Many such balls have been found in tombs.
The Indians made long balls, sabers, often reaching a meter long leaves of a plant called yucca. They rolled them up very tightly, giving them the shape of a ball.
Eskimos use balls sewn from animal skin and stuffed with reindeer hair.
Jędrzej Kitowicz, describing the customs prevailing in Poland in the times of the Saxons, presents ball games in this way: “The ball was a ball of wool or tow, covered with threads on the top, then trimmed with leather, or sewn with threads of various colors in netting; some put fish or veal cartilage in the center of the ball, for better flexibility. This ball was used in two ways: once to hit her in the hand, on the stretched wall, or to hit the ground and catch it in the air; the second time to throw it into the air as far as possible and chase after it.”
Among many modern ball games, hopscotch is quite popular. This game allows you to control your own fitness. It can be attended by two to five people. With more participants, the fun becomes boring, because everyone takes turns doing the tasks for so long, until he makes a mistake. And so, when there are more people, waiting for your turn is getting longer.
Against a wall with no windows in the distance 2-4 draw a throwing line. To play you need a small rubber ball. Before entering the competition, participants agree, in what order will they perform the tasks. They gradually move from the easiest to the more difficult. On the next turn, the contestant starts with this task, where he had previously made a mistake.
Here are some sample tasks. Of course, you can set more or less of them, more difficult or easier, depending on the progress of the children, or just come up with something else. We propose the following:
– throw the ball against the wall and catch it with both hands,
– we throw the ball with one hand, and we grab it with both hands,
– we throw the ball with one hand, and we take the other one,
– we throw the ball against the wall and after clapping our hands three times, we catch it with both hands,
– we throw the ball against the wall, we clap before and behind each other, then we grab it,
– we throw the ball against the wall, we make a grinder in front of us with our hands and grab it with both hands,
– we throw the ball against the wall, we kneel on one knee and grab with both hands,
– we throw the ball against the wall, we turn around our own axis and grab it with both hands,
– we throw the ball against the wall, we do a deep bow, we touch the ground with our fingers, then catch the ball with both hands.
This child is the winner of the competition, which will complete all tasks first.