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Hot Potato!

Stage I

Children sit on the floor in a circle.

Hold a bean bag in your hand. Tell the children that it is a “potato.” Say the following rhyme and tap the bean bag on the floor in front of you on the first word of each line:

One potato
Two potato
Three potato
Four
Five potato
Six potato
Seven potato
More
Eight potato
Nine potato
Here comes number
Ten

Pick up “potato” and juggle it in your hands as if it is hot while saying:

Hot potato!
Hot potato!
Start all over again!

Distribute bean bags to all the children. Have them join you in saying the chant and tapping the “potato” on the floor with their right hand.

Stage II

When the children can easily say the chant and tap to the beat, demonstrate passing the bean bag to the right. Hold the bean bag in your right hand. On “one” place the bean bag in front of the person on your right. Move your hand to the floor in front of you and pick up an imaginary bean bag and place it in front of the person on your right on “two,” etc.

Have the children practice passing the bean bags very slowly to the right. (You may want to begin with "imaginary" bean bags.) Some of them may want to grab a bean bag with their left hand and then put it in their right hand. If this happens, have everyone hold their left hand behind their back.

Say the chant and pass the bean bags around the circle to the beat.

When children can pass to the right, switch directions and pass to the left.