Frisky Five

There’s one animal in the zoo which all the children want to see. She’s called Frisky Five and she has a pen all to herself. The pen has a very high fence all around it. Shall I tell you why?

When Frisky Five first came to the zoo she was in a pen with lots of other animals. Frisky Five is a very friendly kangaroo and she enjoyed being with the other animals. But I’m afraid Frisky Five is also a very bouncy kangaroo and the other animals find her hard to live with.

Straight after breakfast, Frisky Five would start practising her jumps. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump she would hop with both back feet together. She always did five jumps at a time -2 slow ones to begin with and then three quick ones once she had warmed up.

The problem was that Frisky Five never stopped bouncing and jumping, jumping and bouncing. She was always trying to jump higher and longer. She only stopped to eat five leaves for dinner and never tired herself out.

But the other animals soon got tired of her. Often she would suddenly land beside the other animals and give them a scare. The cockatoos hated it when she did this and flew away in a panic. Sometimes she would try to jump over the animal’s heads! Once she even crash landed into the water trough splashing water all over her friends.

She could be a very noisy jumper because she would forget to land on her toes. When she jumped like that the other animals heard a dreadfully loud noise. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump she went!

One Day Frisky Five was practising her jumps as usual. Jump, jump, jump, jump ,jump. It was one of her good days and she jumped higher and longer than ever before.”Wheeee!” she shouted and she bounced right over the fence, landed on the other side and hopped off around the zoo.

All the animals in her pen were happy to have a quiet day without her but the zookeeper was cross. It’s very difficult to catch and hold a bouncing kangaroo. When he did catch her he put her in a pen of her own with a very high fence around it. Frisky Five thought it was marvellous to have her own jumping pen. All the other animals thought so too. The zoo keeper even put a special notice on the gate of the pen. It said “Beware of Frisky Five, the very bouncy kangaroo!”

Activities for number 5

Ask your child to do 5 jumps like a kangaroo counting out loud as they jump.

Make a collect of 5 objects then touch count them to check there is 5