One day, my little boy asked me what games we could play instead of sitting down to do flashcards. I contacted his Chinese teacher and she told him that she used to play “tiào mǎ” (similar to the game of leapfrog) when she was a child.
The child who squats while others jump over their back is “mǎ” and “mǎ” means ‘horse’ in English.
However, there are several rules which make the game different from leapfrog.
- Three or more kids can play the game together. They can decide who the “mǎ” is by playing rock-paper-scissors. The one who loses the rock-paper-scissors game shall be “mǎ” first.
- The child who acts as “mǎ” first bends over with their hands resting on their feet, while the others jump over the “mǎ” one by one in a row. If someone has not jumped over successfully, they shall be the new “mǎ” in place of the previous one. The one who does not need to act as “mǎ” can join in jumping with the other kids.
- Once everyone successfully jumps over successfully in one round, the child who acts as “mǎ” shall lean over resting their hands on their knees to adjust the height, which makes it harder to jump over.
The game can go on and on, and it becomes more difficult since the height of “mǎ” is higher and higher as the game goes on.
If all of the kids have successfully completed jumping over the highest height, the game is over.
Any of the kids who have not successfully participated as “mǎ” shall encourage the ones who have by telling them how to jump higher in the future.
This game will allow kids to learn Chinese while acknowledging the Chinese culture.