Hoop Jumping Patterns
Summer camp fun!
Last year I spent some time figuring out how to teach a viral hoop jumping game I found on Instagram, and found that the students loved the challenge and found the end result to be quite satisfying. This year at Interlochen Summer Arts Camp I revived this activity and expanded it even more! In this post I’ll outline the sequence for teaching it and how you might use it in a more traditional classroom! I’ve also included a chart for how to set up the hoops and a video of the full activity! But first…
Housekeeping:
I’m excited to announce an ONLINE COURSE available in the fall. This one is in conjunction with South East Asia Academy Online, and will be hosted by the Singapore based company. The course, however, will be available globally, so feel free to sign up! The class will meet in the morning (Eastern Time Zone) but will be available asynchronously. It will be all about SOLFÈGE and how movement can improve aural skills!
And don’t forget about MAKE IT MUSIC! If you haven’t bought our book yet, what are you waiting for?
From the Archive:
Jumping Through Hoops
If you’ve been following me on social media, you know that several months ago I shared a video of a soccer (European football) team practicing a routine jumping through various hoops to a musical accompaniment. This video inspired me to try something similar with my students and try to fit the idea into MusicXT principles.
I decided to try this activity with my Junior Campers at Interlochen… these are kids who are ages 8-12 roughly. They are somewhat experienced musicians, with a small number of them being genuine prodigies, and others are pretty typical young students with a few years of private lessons under their belt. It can be a challenge to find activities that will be stimulating for the more advanced kids but manageable for the others. I decided that my “hoop jumping” game from a few years ago would be a good thing to try!
I like this activity because it requires the students to grapple with several levels of awareness. They need to remember a fairly complicated pattern, and are held accountable by their “ensemble.” They need to have practiced various movement techniques and be aware of the overall “groove” to stay together. There are variations that include clapping patterns or systemizations that make it even more challenging. Ultimately it looks really impressive and is fun!
The first thing you need to be able to do is set up the hoops! There are several ways to do this… for this version I made a grid of 8 rows of 4 hoops in each row. This might be limited by the number of hoops you have! I recommend asking your PE teacher… they usually have hoops to spare!