Hopscotch is a children's game that can be played with several players or alone. Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and hop or jump through the spaces to retrieve the object. To play hopscotch, a court is first laid out on the ground. Depending on the available surface, the court is either scratched out in the dirt or drawn with chalk on pavement. Courts may be permanently marked where playgrounds are paved, as in elementary schools. Designs vary, but the court is composed of a series of linear squares interspersed with blocks of two lateral squares. Traditionally the court ends with a "safe" or "home" base in which the player may turn before completing the reverse trip; the home base may be a rectangle, or a semicircle. The squares are numbered in the sequence in which they are to be hopped; the first player tosses a marker called a "lucky", onto the court. The marker should land in the square without bouncing, sliding, or rolling out..

The marker must be within the square without touching the line. The player hops through the course, skipping the marker's square. Single squares must be hopped on one foot, except for the first single square, where either foot may be used. Side-by-side squares are straddled, with the left foot landing in the left square, the right foot landing in the right square. Optional squares marked "Safe", "Home", or "Rest" are neutral squares, may be hopped through in any manner without penalty. After hopping into "Safe", "Home", or "Rest", the player must turn around and retrace their steps through the course on one or two legs, depending on the square, until reaching the marker's square; the player stops in the square before the marker and reaches down to retrieve the marker and continue the course as stated, without touching a line or stepping into a square with another player's marker. Upon completing the sequence, the player continues the turn by tossing the marker into square number two, repeating the pattern.

If, while hopping through the court in either direction, the player steps on a line, misses a square, or loses balance, the turn ends. Players begin their turns; the first player to complete one course for every numbered square on the court wins the game. Although the marker is most picked up during the game in the boy's game, the marker was kicked sequentially back through the course on the return trip and kicked out, it is attested that an ancient form of hopscotch was played by Roman children, but the first recorded references to the game in the English-speaking world date to the late 17th century under the name "scotch-hop" or "scotch-hopper". A manuscript Book of Games compiled between 1635 and 1672 by Francis Willughby refers to'Scotch Hopper‥, they play with a piece of tile or a little flat piece of lead, upon a boarded floor, or any area divided into oblong figures like boards'. In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1677, the game is referred to as "Scotch-hoppers"; the entry states, "The time when schoolboys should play at Scotch-hoppers."

The 1707 edition of Poor Robin's Almanack includes the following phrase… "Lawyers and Physicians have little to do this month, so they may play at Scotch-hoppers." In 1828, Webster's An American Dictionary of the English language referred to the game as'Scotch-hopper'...'a play in which boys hop over scotches and lines in the ground.'Since the game was known and popular in the seventeenth century, it is logical to suppose it may have existed at least a few decades before its earliest literary reference. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymology of hopscotch is a formation from the words "hop" and "scotch", the latter in the sense of "an incised line or scratch"; the journal of the British Archaeological Association, Volume 26 states, "The sport of Hop-Scotch or Scotch-Hoppers is called in Yorkshire'Hop-Score,' and in Suffolk'Scotch Hobbies or Hobby,' from the boy who gets on the player's back whilst hopping or'hicking,' as it is there termed. There are many other forms of hopscotch played across the globe.

In India it is called Stapu, Nondi or Kith-Kith, in Spain and some Latin American countries, it is called rayuela, although it may be known as golosa or charranca. In Turkey, it is Seksek. In Russian it is known as классики. In Poland, it appear in two forms: klasy which has a rectangular shape and no marker, players call out names of various items of a given class, e.g. colours or flowers, while jumping on successive fields. In Sweden the game is named hoppa hage, while in Norway it is called Paradise. In Italy the game is known as mondo. In the Netherlands and Flanders, it is called Hinkelen. In Bosnia and Serbia it is called školica, meaning "little school". In Malaysia, the most popular variant is called tengteng. In Mexico, it is called bebeleche meaning "drink milk" or avioncito meaning "little plane", after its shape. In Cuba and in Puerto Rico it is called "La Peregrina" and the squares represent

Since the 1980s, self-styled Green Scouts have appeared in several countries, related to the protection of the environment and in some cases linked to Greens Parties. However environmentally-minded Scouts have existed since the earliest days of the movement. In response to a rash of devastating fires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the State of Michigan established a group of Boy Scouts called the Michigan Forest Scouts in 1912. A similar group, with nearly identical badges, was established in the State of New York; the purpose of these organizations was not character building, as it was with the Boy Scouts of America, there were no ranks or merit badges. Instead, the Forest Scouts were charged with protecting the state's forests, as a result were considered auxiliary fire wardens. Although the BSA disapproved of such groups, it was not so with the Forest Scouts. In one of the BSA's annual reports, the Forest Scouts are mentioned with approval and a note is made that "the groups are headed up by Boy Scout men and that the Forest Scouts and the Boy Scouts of America are affiliated."Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama has had direct involvement with Green Scouting on at least two occasions, when on September 3, 1999 he was made a Patron of the Global Movement of Green Scouts in New Delhi, India.

Scouting organizations in Niger include the Association Nigerienne des Scouts de l'Environnement, founded in 2003, which seems to have UN accreditation. The World Organization of the Scout Movement has stated its firm opposition to use of the words "Scout" and "Boy Scout" by Green Scout organizations, made their position clear to all international governmental and non-governmental organizations involved with the environment, such as the United Nations' Environment Program and the World-Wide Fund for Nature. "There is room for all in the fight to protect nature and the environment... but there is no room for creating confusion between that fight and the broader purposes of an established educational organization such as World Scouting and its duly authorized member associations around the globe." Explained Jacques Moreillon, Secretary General of WOSM in the 1990s. Several national WOSM member organizations issue a World Conservation Award. Traditional Scouting Green party

Grey Badger II was a noted Quarter Horse match racer and sire in the early days of the American Quarter Horse Association or AQHA. Grey Badger II foaled on May 5, 1941, he was registered with number 2006 in the AQHA. His stud book listing gives his color as gray, his breeder as Walter F. Merrick of Texola, Oklahoma, his sire was Midnight Jr #210, his dam was listed as Grey Annie #3502 by Billy the Tough, second dam as Casey Jones mare by Casey Jones. He was owned by Chick Crisp of Oklahoma at the time he was registered, his sire traced to Peter McCue three times. His dam traced to Peter McCue two more times, making Grey Badger II inbred to Peter McCue, with five crosses. Grey Badger II was a noted match racer during the 1940s, his official racing record with the AQHA has him starting six times in three years, with two wins and no seconds or thirds. He achieved an AA speed rating. Among his famous offspring were Grey Badger III and Badger's Grey, his granddaughter Triangle Tookie is a leading producer including Two Eyed Jack.

Grey Badger II died on the Triangle Ranch in Texas around 1972. Grey Badger II was inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame in 2007. Grey Badger II at Foundation Horses Grey Badger II at Quarter Horse Directory Grey Badger II at Quarter Horse Legends