Rainbow Hopscotch

On backwards days we often have whole group snack on the carpet (there's not enough table space to eat altogether there so we opt for picnic style instead). Today we used snack time as an opportunity to "read" the ongoing documentation about Rainbow Hopscotch.  Even children who haven't yet had direct involvement in the project were invested in our discussion and shared their ideas. Some concepts that emerged during the discussion were: shapes, numbers, size/scale, rules,  and patterns.

A small group comprised of Cannon, Emilia, Grace, Gigi, and Evelyn went down to Blake Hall. The children worked individually or in groups to create life size hopscotch. First they watched a short video of some children playing the game and discussed the design of a hopscotch board and how someone jumps across it.

Cannon was the first to make an attempt. He drew a square and then tested the size of it against his own foot. But it wasn't quite big enough.

Soon Evelyn was drawing one. Cannon helped her test the size and then she checked with her own foot.

Emilia then explained how she could use her foot to help ensure the hopscotch square she drew was large enough.
Emilia, "To test it out, to see if it's big enough, I just put my foot on the paper and then I just go around my foot. That's how I do it."

Gigi was meticulous in drawing her shapes and then using the image we had looked at on the computer to help herself write the numbers inside each one.

Later Grace helped Emilia and their board included numbers and then some letters. It turns out that the image we had for reference on the computer had a strange looking 7... one that looked similar to the letter F (backward). 

Emilia was reading  her hopscotch and said, "Zero and six, F"
Grace," No that's F."
Emilia, "No but it's supposed to be just like this." (she indicates the 7 on the  computer screen)
Grace, "That's a F."
Emilia, "No that's not a F."
Grace (pointing to the screen), "F"
Brooke, "What do you think Emilia, is that F?"
Emilia, "It is F but it's not supposed to be in hopscotch." 
(So we discussed how there are different ways to write the number 7.)
Cannon, "That's a lowercase 7." 
Brooke, "Actually numbers don't come in uppercase and lowercase."
Cannon, "Yeah, only letters."
Brooke, "Lowercase is a small letter."

Looking back at their hopscotch we noticed that it has numbers and letters.
Brooke, "Does hopscotch have letters?"
Grace, "Yes."
Emilia "No."
Cannon, "Only numbers."

It was a SUPER productive and exciting day for our Rainbow Hopscotch project.  See some more photos of the children working below, along with the finished drawings.  We'll use this research as we move forward.