Cottesloe Beach Skipping Rhyme

NB: This post contains instructions. If you just want to read the poem, scroll to the bottom of the page!

At the last tag, Sally gave me DANCE, ONE and CARAMEL.

Cottesloe Beach (in Western Australia) has recently had lots of visitors to see Sculpture By the Sea. This is a poem about the beach and how I always find the sand so hot and the water so cold, and how there’s always someone ready to splash me with the cold seawater before I’m ready to ease myself in …

When I was at school, my favourite skipping rhymes were the ones with a constant cycle of skippers moving through the turning rope. Here we go!

First: assemble your ‘Skipping Rhyme’ kit.

Ingredients:

• A long skipping rope, with a bit of weight to it.
• A sunny day and a large patch of grass to skip on. (A park is a good option.)
• At least five people — two to turn the long rope, one person to skip, and one or more people ready to run in and join the skipper. Note: There will be two people skipping at the same time occasionally.
• The words to ‘Cottesloe Beach Skipping Rhyme’ (see below).

Method:

1. Two people start turning the skipping rope. One person skips. When you have a rhythm going, everyone starts chanting the skipping rhyme (see below).
2. Where there are names in the rhyme, you need to replace them with the names of the people actually skipping instead. 🙂
3. Everyone waiting for a turn to skip lines up in a queue just beyond the skipping rope (so they don’t get whacked by the turning rope) and the person at the head of the queue needs to be ready to run straight in and start skipping when the rhyme says ‘along comes Tran’
4. Where the rhyme says ‘Run, Sally! Run!’ the first skipper needs to exit the skipping rope, leaving the second skipper behind, jumping on their own.
5. Try to keep the rope turning and see how many people you can cycle through before it all crashes in a heap!

COTTESLOE BEACH SKIPPING RHYME

 

Sally at the beach                                     <— Replace ‘Sally’ with skipper’s name.
on the caramel sands,
hops to the water
with a hot sand dance.

Along comes Tran                                 <— Second skipper runs in & skips too.
looking for fun —
one cold splash!
Run, Sally! Run!                                    <— Sally exits.

 

Tran at the beach                                  <— Tran keeps skipping.
on the caramel sands,
hops to the water
with a hot sand dance.

Along comes Rebecca                            <— Another friend runs in & skips too.
looking for fun —
one cold splash!
Run, Tran! Run!                                   <— Tran exits.

 

Rebecca at the beach                           <— Rebecca keeps skipping …
on the caramel sands …

© REBECCA NEWMAN, 2016