Rapunzel's hair hopping
You’ll need
- Short pieces of rope - 10 or more pieces, each around 30cm long
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.
Tangled is the tale of Rapunzel, a determined and feisty tower-bound teen with 70 feet of magical, golden hair. She is kidnapped as an infant by Mother Gothel and locked away in a tower deep in the woods. As she grows up, Rapunzel dreams of understanding the significance of the floating lights that always appear in the sky on her birthday.
When the kingdom's most wanted bandit, Flynn Rider, hides out in her tower, Rapunzel seizes the opportunity. She strikes a deal with him and the unlikely duo set off on an action-packed adventure, with the resourceful Rapunzel using her strong hair and a frying pan to escape the men一and horse一pursuing Flynn.
After years of dreaming, she finally sees the lights: floating lanterns released by her parents and the kingdom every year in her honor. Through her adventures, Rapunzel rediscovers her identity as the kingdom’s Lost Princess, and finds her way back to the castle, where she is reunited with her family and becomes the princess she was meant to be.
All tied up
- Gather everyone in a circle or their smaller groups. Chat to everyone about Tangled, who Rapunzel is and what happens in the story.
You could discuss things, such as where she lives, why she lives there, what animals are in the story and the names of other characters. You could also get everyone to name their favourite part of the story.
- Next, show everyone the short pieces of rope. Ask everyone what it reminds them of from the story of Rapunzel, but what might be wrong with it?
Hopefully everyone should say it looks like her hair, but it’s too short and looks like only pieces of it.
- Ask people to think about how you can make her hair longer again. Ask a few people for their ideas.
- Once everyone’s thought of their ideas, you can say how you’re going to work together to tie the rope together.
- Now, have a chat about knots and how they help tie things together. Ask if anyone knows names of any knots or how to do them
Has anyone tied any knots recently? Hopefully they might have tied their shoes, a friendship bracelet or their Scouts Necker!
- Explain that everyone’s going to work together to tie the pieces of Rapunzel’s hair back together using a reef knot.
- Show the group how to tie a reef knot and give everyone a few minutes to practise.
- When everyone’s ready, ask the group to work together and tie all the pieces of rope together to make one long piece of rope.
- Here’s a reef/square knot video to help show everyone how to tie the knot if needed. Make sure there are enough adults or young leaders around to help anyone if they need it.
Skipping round the tower
- Explain to everyone that now they’ve tied all the hair pieces together, they’re going to use it to learn to skip.
- Have a chat about what skipping is and how they’ve to try to jump over the rope.
You could talk about how Rapunzel’s brave and left the tower to try something new, so everyone can be brave, just like Rapunzel, and try skipping.
- An adult or young leader could show everyone how to skip. Make sure there’s an adult on either end of the rope to swing it round.
- Give everyone the opportunity to have a go at skipping.
If anyone’s a bit unsure about taking part, start spinning the rope slowly to build up their confidence and get faster when they have.
- You could see if you could fit more than one person in the skipping rope, or see if there are any other ways to jump over Rapunzel’s hair.
© Disney
Reflection
This activity gave you the opportunity to develop your skills and learn something new, with the help of Rapunzel and her hair.
All tied up
- Had anyone tied a reef knot before? If so, did you help anyone else learn how to tie it?
- If you hadn’t tied it before, how did it feel to learn this new skill?
- How do you think you’ll use this knot in the future?
Skipping around the castle
- Rapunzel had to be brave leaving the tower. Were you brave when you tried skipping?
- Is the skipping fun? Did you have to have a couple of turns to get the hang of it?
- Do you think you could teach anyone else how to skip? If so, who?
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Active games
The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.
- You could give each group a set of ropes to make a skipping rope per group to make it easier for everyone to have a turn.
- You could make the short pieces of rope longer or shorter, which will change the number of knots that need to be tied.
- If anyone needs help in tying the rope, give them the opportunity to work with someone else, or an adult, to help them to tie the knot.
- If people may struggle with jumping through the rope, is there another way they could join in? Could they count the jumps or help spin the rope? You could ask people to step over the rope without touching it and wiggle it on the floor to make it harder, rather than asking them to repeatedly jump over/through it.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
Now you’ve learnt to tie a reef knot, what other knots could you learn? You could tie a shoelace knot on your shoes, or even learn to braid hair, just like Rapunzel does with hers.