h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have never played hopscotch and wondered what the hopping criteria were. Thanks for the elucidation VB

As you say they are variants of these rules. I mentioned the game to colleagues and was told they had not played it quite like this (as far as they could remember )- they threw the stone to squares in order as stated and hopped past, but had to *pick up the stone on the return trip* (possibly while standing on one leg). They didn't recall 'winning beds' either - obviously not highly competitive players.

Pimms

When I was in school we played it as Pimms' colleagues did. No 'winning beds', and you had to pick up the stone on the return trip. And we used a rubber disc (twice the diameter of a hockey puck, and half the thickness) instead of a stone.

Also we played on a grid like this 1 (23) 4 5 (67) 8 9, with the nine a little larger so it was easier to hop from 8, turn around and land "backwards" on nine for the return journey.

or maybe it was 8 9 10... it's only been a couple of decades, but my mind is already going. :D

Never really played it because no one seemed to know the rules at he school I went. We did throw rocks and leap back and forth, but it was all inconclusive. And besides, it was rather considered a girl's game anyway - as was leaping cord and elastics.

i grew up playing hopscotch A very interesting game indeed specially in school after school anytime like skipping the rope alone or with company

I guess we just were not very competitive; we simply drew the board as was said and tried to hop to ten and back. No stones, no winning beds, pretty much no rules. And we drew the board with chalk so it varied everytime we played

i agree there with you psycho not being competitive made me enjoy it more as a fun game

Where about in the world are you Naita? Various people have told me about what they threw but you have a new variation. Twice the size of a puck but half as thick. It sounds very specialised.

It's interesting how games which come from a violent or military past have been taken up by girls (If hopscotch is played more by girls). Lacrosse is a girls/women's game now but had a very different beginning.

I'm in Norway and the rubber disc thing was fairly specialised, but cheap. Our class had a couple of them, and some other play equipment that we could use during recess. For the school it was propably convenient when we used this instead of dragging stones into the schoolyard all the time.