Bullfrog Game | Playworks (2024)

Development Goal

To develop memorization and listening skills

Before You Start

Circle the players, with their hands outstretched sideways with their palms facing up. The right hand should be on top of their neighbor’s left hand (continuous around the circle).

How to Play

• The leader begins the chant and a slap is passed around the circle along with the chant, “Down by the banks of the hanky panky, where the bullfrog jumps from bank to banky, with an E, I, O, U, it got on a lily with a big kerr-plop! (Some players seem to know another version, but this one is shorter and easier to remember…).
• When you get to the kerr-plop on the last beat the person tries to move his or her hands before they are slapped.
• If they move their hand before it is hit, the one who hit his or her own hand is out, if they don’t move it in time, the person who’s hand was hit is out.
• The players who are out move to the outside of the circle and help sing the song.

Variations

With younger players (K-1st), when they get out let them sit in the middle as “chicken soup.” Then students don’t lose interest too quickly and they stay part of the game.