Finger Games

If play has always been a child's first teacher, then parents become a child's first toys. German educator Friedrich Froebel (1782–1827) asserted, “What a child imitates, he begins to understand.” For a newborn's strong grasp reflex action, finger games provide the first play that can quiet a child. Finger games are derived from natural play between mother and infant and strengthen and develop flexibility. The actions are not as important as the interaction between parent and child. Newborns feel different sensations, but respond most affirmatively to soft stroking, cuddling, and caressing. Newborns are comforted when they suck their thumb or a pacifier, or when they hear the pitch of a parent's voice. Eye contact builds bonds between parent and child. Repeated sounds and motions form foundations for formulating memory. At the most elemental level, finger play is an individual's first lesson in living. By simply talking about ordinary actions, a parent can engage an infant in his environment.

Finger games do not educate through formula but, rather, through pleasant sensations. These games begin with the parent's touch and involve repetitive basic hand rhythm sequences. An infant associates meaning with [Page 230]the motion when variations of a finger game are repeated over time. One of the earliest developmental games can help a baby become accustomed to being turned over from back to stomach. A mother positions her baby on its back and sings as she goes through various motions: “Rub a baby belly—pat, pat, pat. Rub a baby belly—just like that!” Then rolling the baby over gently onto its belly, she chants: “Rrrooooll over baby!” Then she continues, “Rub a baby back—pat, pat, pat.” Once the infant learns what is coming next, it soon anticipates the step, “Rrrooooll over baby!”

In fetal development the auditory system forms extremely early, and the ear is actually the first sensory organ to develop brain connections. When a baby is born, he or she soon recognizes familiar tunes and can distinguish between a parental voice and that of a stranger. Most infants (birth to 6 months) respond to music with body movements and wiggles. Newborns generally respond more quickly to a female voice than to a male voice, which may explain why people instinctively soften and raise the pitch of their voice when talking to infants. As an infant's hand-eye coordination develops (6 months to 1 year), he or she becomes more mobile and can grasp and manipulate objects. This means that when a baby shakes a rattle, he or she understands that the shaking causes a noise to occur.

Babies begin to clap their hands in response to music, so adults naturally encourage and demonstrate similar responses. Even toddlers (12 to 36 months) and young children smile when they see repetitions of finger games that they played in early developmental stages. Younger children tenaciously demand repetition of favorite activities. “Tell it again, and tell it just the same,” and will correct the storyteller if there is even a slight deviation in the performance.

Some infant amusement has been traced back to medieval times. For example, in “Handy dandy, rid-dledy, ro, which hand will you have? High or low?” an adult invites a young child to guess in which hand the object is concealed in a fist behind his back. Most finger games played by children are derived, maintained, and continue to evolve through oral traditions. String figures (using one's fingers, and sometimes involving multiple people) to manipulate string to form designs evolved from indigenous cultures on many continents. Cat's Cradle is one of the best-known string finger games that utilizes a piece of cord or string. For older children, peers became the best source for learning finger games. Nineteenth-century American writer Lydia Maria Child advised young readers to “find some friend kind enough to teach her” string finger games. Likewise, Child included a section on shadow pictures, an ancient kind of finger game where players form pictures on a surface by forming various hand positions between a light source and the surface to form animal images.

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