Jump Rope Activities for Elementary Students

If you can hop to the rhythm, try this inexpensive cardiovascular workout using jump rope activities for elementary students and older! Jumping rope helps improve muscular endurance, coordination, and brain function, the American Heart Association states. Before any jump-rope game, strap on supportive athletic shoes and warm up. Using a jump rope for other activities is a fun way to get exercise too!

START OUT VERY SIMPLE

If your younger kids (preschoolers, kindergarten, first grade, etc) can not coordinate jumping rope yet there are other fun games to play with rope –

  • lay out two jump ropes and jump across them – this is a great way to get early jumping practice. Play a fun game that incorporates pretend play. Keep separating the ropes a little bit more and pretend to “cross a river”.
  • wrap the ends of the rope around your legs and practice tying the end of the rope into a knot (like tying a giant shoe)
  • hold the rope slightly off the ground and practice jumping over it
  • make the letter J out of the rope and walk on it for balance
  • lay out two ropes on the ground and walk between them like a thin balance beam

TRY USING A HULA HOOP TO BEGIN TO LEARN SKIPPING ROPE

Before you introduce jumping rope officially, practice with a hula hoop first. When they try for the first time, hold the hoop with two hands, bring it over the head, around to the front of the feet, and jump over the hoop. This is a great body awareness activity too!

Repeat the process of practicing these motor skills before moving on to jumping rope.

Read more hula hoop games for kids here.

JUMP ROPE ACTIVITIES FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS TO DO ALONE

Of course, the first activity to start with is simply learning how to jump rope. To get started, find a rope that is the appropriate length for your height. You can do this by measuring the rope against your body. The top of the rope should reach about chest level.

Once you have found a suitable rope, it’s time to start jumping! Begin by standing on the center of the rope with both feet, hold the rope handles, then swing the rope over your head and jump as it comes around. Keep your jumps consistent and try to land lightly on your feet.

As you become more comfortable with the basic jump, you can start to experiment with different ways of jumping and different tricks. For example, you can try crossing your arms in front of your body as you jump, or you can even try double jumping (jumping twice in quick succession). With a little bit of practice, you’ll be completing your jump rope workout like a pro in no time!

Try Song Games Alone or With a Friend

Song games are a perfect activity to help teach jump rope skills. For each rope, two kids must turn and one to two students can jump, depending on the size of the rope. For counting songs, such as “I Love Apples,” once the song gets to the count, children must jump the preselected skill for as many repetitions as possible, up to a certain maximum as time allows. In action songs, the kids must jump the called actions, such as “turn around” and “touch the ground” in the game “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.”

Strawberry Shortcake is a fun song game. The chant goes like this:

Strawberry Shortcake cream on top,

Tell me the name of your sweetheart,

Is it A, B, C,D….

Jumper continues jumping until the child misses. Whichever letter he/she lands on has to use that letter to name a sweetheart. If you do not want to do a sweetheart you can change the category to favorite ice cream flavor or the best type of candy.

Jump Rope Activities for Elementary Students to Do with Friends

For other jumping rope games you will need some friends and possibly a longer rope depending upon the activity. This is a great activity to encourage social skills among a bigger group of kids. The kids may have to work together on a team or just have lots of fun!

Snakes

Snakes offer an exciting alternative for younger children who may not have the coordination for the more advanced jumping games. Stand a group of children in a circle around you. Hold one end of the jump rope in your hand and make the rope slither back and forth like a snake at the children’s feet. Each child must jump over the “snake” when it comes her way. If someone fails to jump over the snake without touching it, she is out of the game. The last child standing wins.

Jump Rope Games for Elementary Students

Try Action Chant

In an action song, two kids turn a long rope while singing the song. As the jumper, the first child performs all of the named actions. If he makes a jumping mistake or fail to do the action, he will lose the game and take a turn rope-turning for another jumper. In the song “Teddy Bear,” he has to turn around, touch the ground, touch his shoe, climb the stairs, say his prayers, dim the lights and wave goodnight.

Rhyming Games

Once your kids have mastered some basic jump rope skills, you can incorporate common or obscure rhymes or jump rope songs as games. They have to recite the rhyme to the rhythm of their jumping. The goal of these simple jumping games is to complete the rhyme without faltering or failing to clear the rope as it passes beneath them. Nearly any rhyme will work for these games. Some popular rhymes include “Jack Be Nimble”, “I Had a Little Puppy” and “Miss Mary Mack.” Some rhymes go on to incorporate counting after the rhyme is done. 

Relay Jump Rope Activities for Elementary Students

Get ready, set, jump! For this team jump rope game, divide jumpers into two even teams. Set a start and finish point across a hard outside surface, such as the playground. At the whistle, one kid from each team begins jumping to and from the starting point. When he/she returns, he/she passes the jump rope to his teammate. The first team to finish wins the relay. For a bigger challenge, require players to jump specific styles across different legs of the relay, such as one-footed or crisscrossing the rope.

Chinese Jump Rope

In this game, the rope is not spun. Instead, two players put the rope around their ankles and stand far enough apart that the rope stretches tightly. A third player jumps in and out of the boundary created by the rope. The players holding the rope call out, “in, out, side, side, on, in, out” and the jumper lands with her feet in the position called out.

If the jumper hits the rope when she does not mean to, or if she attempts to jump on the rope and misses, she is out and the next jumper plays. When players successfully complete the sequence, they raise the rope to knee height and repeat the game. They continue to raise the rope higher until the jumper is unable to complete the sequence.

This can be tricky and requires a lot of coordination and balance skills. You can modify the activity and use simpler actions such as simply stepping in and out of the rope area.

Copycat Games – Jump Rope Activities for Elementary Students

Copying is encouraged in copycat games, such as Simon Says. In Simon Says, preface most commands with “Simon says.” If you give a command without saying, “Simon says” and a child follows it, that kid must exit the game. If you don’t say “Simon says stop” and you give a new command, the children must follow the new command while still executing the last called skill. For example, “Simon Says jump three times” or “Simon Says jump rope backwards”. You can add two directions “Simon Says jump in a circle hopping on one foot.”

Another example of a copycat game is Follow the Leader. One person begins jumping rope around the open area and others follow keeping the same pace. Both of these games can be played with a small group or a larger group of elementary students.

Double Dutch Jump Rope

Skipping double dutch requires precise rhythmic jumping because you must hop over not one but two ropes turning in opposite directions. In double dutch, two kids turn two long jump ropes “eggbeater” style, meaning one rope turns clockwise and one rope turns counterclockwise. To play, the kids have to jump into the ropes and hop from foot to foot as the ropes pass under your feet. Often times a beaded rope is used.

Its simplicity and need for no equipment other than a rope have made it popular among children who have few games available to them. Over the decades, new games have developed for jump ropes, but the basic ideas have remained unchanged.