Children need to be used to using a telephone and should know some numbers, such as their home number, the emergency services number, or a grand parent’s number.

To play this game they need to be shown the old kind of phone, which had a dial, instead of the modern numbered buttons to press.

Place the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 around the edge of the parachute. Leave the unused sections blank and next to each other.

The children hold the parachute up at their waist level. One child stands clear of the parachute, beside the number 0, holding a triangle from the musical instruments.

The teacher starts to call out a telephone number, calling one number at a time. As each number is called the children move the parachute in a clockwise direction by walking it round the circle. When the number called reaches the triangle, the child holding it makes it ring. The dial is then returned to its original position by being walked in an anti-clockwise way. When it is back to the starting place, the teacher calls out the next number, and the process is repeated. This goes on until the whole phone number has been “dialled”.

This game can be varied by passing the parachute from hand to hand instead of walking it round.

Instead of the teacher calling the number, a child could call out its own home number.