AlphaStones

M's preschool is having a basket raffle soon, and the one for her class is themed "Move It". I wanted to make something fun for the basket that would get kids moving, outside if possible. I came up with a new hopscotch game I'm calling Alphastones.

A while ago I saw a post on making little pyramid bean bags at Ikat Bag.  She knew them from her childhood in Singapore, so I made a set for my cousins who lived there for a while.

The concept is so simple, take a rectangle of fabric and sew a square pocket. Turn and fill with beans and sew shut. But instead of making a flat bag, you sew the last seam perpendicular to the bottom and it comes out in triangles! I keep getting little stone shaped pieces when I square up the corners on my bags, so I made some orange and green ones at Easter that have turned into pincushions.

This time I made 7 stones, from 3in X 6in scraps of denim. (No new jeans were harmed in the making of these stones, all the jeans had huge holes in the knees!) Then I painted the letters of the alphabet on the sides with fabric paint. All the letters are there, plus an extra A and U for good measure!

Here are the rules:
Draw a grid on the driveway with chalk, putting all the letters in the squares.

You can do this in any order, QWERTY if you have a keyboard handy for reference, or whatever.
One player is the "Jumper" and they stand near, or on, the grid.
One player is the "Caller" he tosses the AlphaStones in the air, then picks up each stone and calls out the letter on the bottom, and a form of movement.

So, the Caller may say "jump to letter N" and the Jumper will jump! Or hop, spin, wiggle, whatever.

Here is the command "Fly to letter K." I'll put the stones in a little bag and write up the directions. I've already got one more set on the sewing machine to keep at home.

By the way, helmets are not required, unless you are riding your bike in-between rounds of the game.