A skipping rope of the kind that has been made for decades: a braided cord two metres long between two turned handles in pale wood. The length is printed on the header card.
Two metres is enough to skip on your own, and also to have two children swing the rope while a third jumps in between - the rhyming game that comes back in every playground. The wooden grips carry enough weight to keep the rope turning smoothly.
The rope takes up next to no space and fits in a rucksack or a shoulder bag, so it travels easily to the park, the campsite or grandma's. Skipping asks for nothing else: just some room and a level surface.
A small, affordable gift that lasts, and one of the few things in the toy cupboard with no batteries and no screen.
