The Jumping Sheep

 Once upon a time, there was a sheep who loved to jump fences. He loved the satisfying smack he heard when he landed on the far side of the fence, and sometimes he would land so hard that he kind of bounced when he landed. So he would jump up high, and then come down as hard as he could on the other side of the fence.

Can you pretend your hand is the sheep? Hold your hand a little way out to the side of your body, lift him up as high as your head and then make him drop straight down right in front of you. The ground is about even with your waist. 

The farmer got tired of having to go find this sheep when he jumped over the fence out of the field where he lived, so he built some smaller fences that he could put in a circle inside the field so the sheep could jump these fences and go around and around until he got tired and stopped. 



Once again, can you pretend your hand is the sheep? Make him go up and down and up and down as he jumps the little fences in his field. (Remember to always come down a little harder!)

Sometimes the farmer spaced the fences a little farther apart so the sheep had to take an extra hop between each jump.

This is a three step fence. The farmer may paint something like this at the beginning so the sheep will know how many steps to make (The top number shows how many steps. Don't worry about the bottom number for now): 

This time, make your hand go in a triangle. Go up, down, and then out to your side, then up again, like this:


Sometimes the fences are so far apart, that the sheep has to make two hops between each fence, for a total of four steps. The farmer would paint this at the beginning.

This one is a little trickier to do with your hand. Go up, down, bounce to the left, then bounce to the right, then up again, like this:

Eventually, the sheep comes to the outer edge of his field, which looks like this: 

This usually means he is done and needs to rest for a while, but the sheep likes to finish in style so he does a back flip, and then he lies down and takes a nap!
Can you make your hand do a little loop? Start with your hand open, and when you get to the end of the loop, pinch your fingers together, like the sheep closing his eyes for a rest.

So the sheep lived a long and happy life jumping fences.

The End.


Bonus Feature:


This is Fermata, the Cyclops.

Sometimes Fermata likes to make himself invisible (mostly) and hide behind the fence. When the sheep passes by him, Fermata grabs him! 

The poor sheep has to do a back flip to escape!


Pretend your hand is the sheep again. There you are, minding your own business, jumping fences in your own field (up, down, bounce left, bounce right, up...) but then the cyclops grabs you! Hold your hand up there in the air for a moment, then do a flip, bounce off his hand and then drop down again. Whew! You escaped!

The End. Again.

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