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Bounce chapter opener illustration

Bounce

A COURSE IS MOVES IN A ROW

Bounce the Grasshopper Does Your Course

Bounce is a springy little grasshopper with long bendy legs and a great big smile, and Bounce LOVES to move. Hop, spin, freeze, crawl - Bounce will do them all, if you tell him the order.

Because that is the fun of it. When you put a few moves in a ROW, one after another, you have made something special. You have made a course.

“A course is just moves in a row!” Bounce says, wiggling his happy antennae. “Give me two, give me three - put them in order, and I will do every one!”

So a little friend tries it. “Hop,” she says, “then spin, then freeze.”

Bounce listens carefully. Then off he goes, in order, one move at a time. “HOP up high!” - boing! “SPIN around!” - whee! “FREEZE - hold still!” - and Bounce goes stiff as a twig, wobbling, trying not to giggle.

The little friend claps. “You did them ALL! In the right order!”

“Because you put them in a ROW,” Bounce beams. “That’s a course. Now let’s do it TOGETHER.”

And they do it together, right across the room. Hop. Spin. Freeze. Move by move, in order, laughing the whole way.

That is Bounce’s whole springy idea.

Put your moves in a row - hop, then spin, then freeze - and that’s a course.

A grown-up can play too! Make a tiny course together, out loud: “Hop… then spin… then freeze.” Now DO it across the room, move by move, in that exact order. Then make a new one! Two moves, three moves - any moves you like, in a row. That’s your course.

When Bounce finishes the course and lands with a happy little plop, he feels the warm, glad tickle of a grasshopper who did every move, in just the right order, with a friend. “That was a GOOD course,” he says, catching his breath. “You put the moves in a lovely row. Shall we make another?”

Moves in a row. That’s a course. That’s Bounce.

Reading together with a grown-up? A card for the grown-up

For the grown-up: ask one question, then wait. When they answer, add one word to what they said. Tap the button when they have said something — that is one turn each, a circle. Nothing is recorded or kept.

Let them finish it

Say “Bounce says: put your moves in a row - hop, then spin, …” and stop. Let them finish it.

Then say the whole line together: “Bounce says: put your moves in a row - hop, then spin, then freeze - and that's a COURSE!”.

Now wait. Count slowly to five in your head. Their answer is worth the quiet.

Circles together: 0

The HopTots ensemble

Bounce is one of the friends in HopTots. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.