Clapping, counting and tapping: using fingerplays with young children

Last summer, I gave a workshop on fingerplays to a large group of early childhood educators. It was so fun! Whether you’re a teacher, parent, grandparent, storyteller or even a babysitter, you’ll find that young children enjoy these simple bits of silliness. Here’s one I learned from a group of kindergartners in Belgium (I posted this a while ago, but not with my own hands, with my hereditary crooked fingers):

First of all, what is a fingerplay? It’s a simple song or chant for children, using the fingers. Remember “Where Is Thumbkin”? That is a fingerplay. These are low-tech, simple and fun ways to connect with children.

Fingerplays and rhymes are great for engaging young minds. Here are some benefits:

• teaching simple math,

• enhancing small and large motor coordination,

• building listening skills and appropriate participation,

• offering valuable prereading skills such as rhythm, rhyme, sequencing and prediction.

Johnny Woops is one of the simplest fingerplays I know, and it works with tiny children up to about six-year-olds. You can use any names you want. Parents can do this fingerplay on their baby’s hands. One of the nice things about this one is that children cross the midline of the body. The two sides of the brain must work together that way, as we do when we read right to left. Brain exercise!

As I prepared for the workshop, I thought back to my own childhood. “Here are my lady’s knives and forks” was a fingerplay I remembered. “Two little blackbirds” was another (Google these if you don’t know them). My public library and my own personal library have books of fingerplays.

I also went on the hunt online, turning first to jbrary. The two librarian hosts have put together an amazing treasury of stories, songs and games. Here’s one I love, not exactly a fingerplay but close:

In my search, I found quite a few songs and fingerplays by Dany Rosevear that suit me well. I especially like the old-fashioned “Wind the Bobbin Up”, though I did have to explain to my storytime kids what a bobbin is. This one enhances large motor skills.

I hope some of these will suit you. If they don’t, look for some that do! I’d love to hear about your favorite fingerplays and action songs.

A few songs for storytime

If you’ve ever attended my storytimes for kids, you know that I mix in songs, stretches and puppet hilarity between the stories. During the pandemic, I’ve added a few fun ones to my repertoire. Here are some of the most-requested, thanks to other children’s performers.

Sef told me he learned this song from some women from the Caribbean.

I prefer the video from KidsMusicShop1, but the link only worked on YouTube. One thing I’ve learned about singing with kids is that you can sing simply, and it’s even fine if the tune shifts—that’s the folkloric process! Kids will rarely criticize your singing.

I found this next one through the Lullabies, Tickles and Fingerplays for Early Childhood group on Facebook. It became a fast favorite. I especially like how they explain the best way to spit out all the seeds at the end. We don’t want actual spitting at storytime!

I learned this next song from my sister-in-law years ago, but her tune is slightly different. I sing it with high melodrama. On Zoom calls, I prompt the audience to sing the “meow, meow, meow” by pointing at them.

I just got a new cat puppet and named him Don Gato. I also just got a real cat (really still a kitten). His name is Pippin.

What are your favorite songs to sing with kids?

You do WHAT?!

My friend Granny Sue is organizing a storytelling blog hop (the internet answer to a pub crawl?) and she asked for blog posts about who we are and what we do. If you're a family member or old friend, you probably know this stuff, but it occurs to me that many readers don't know my background or the range of what I do. So here goes...

On a plane, at a party, in a networking gathering or in many other places, the question comes up. "And what do you do?"

"I'm a storyteller." 

"What? What does that mean?"

"Well, I tell stories." I launch in, "I tell folktales, my own stories and stories from books. I don't read the stories, I tell them. When I work with young children, I use puppets, but I also tell stories to adults and older kids." 

The next question is often, "Can you make a living at that?" Yes, I have done so since 1993. 

"How do you get your work?" I jump into the list of things I use to market my work: this website and blog, directories and rosters, postcards, e-mails and my favorite, word of mouth. 

"How did you start?" I have a couple of answers. One is that I babysat when I was a teenager and would make up stories to tell to the kids. Another is that I was a children's librarian and learned to tell stories in my job. I always tell people how lucky I am to do work I love. 

Still, these answers don't ever tell close to the whole story.

You can find me telling stories in schools, libraries and at festivals. I tell for kids who are learning English, you can find me hanging out with the stroller crowd with puppets, I might be at a school telling character ed stories, I love telling stories in Juvenile Detention, I've told stories to high school communications classes and forensics students, I teach a workshop (or series) called "Storytelling, Storywriting." Before performances for kids, I often play "Name that tune" with the listeners, playing on my harmonica. Afterwards, the puppets might greet the audience.

Is that all? Nah. I tell Medieval stories to older kids and adults, including The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, my longest story, which clocks in at 95 minutes, and Queen Berta and King Pippin, which I translated from Old French and Modern French. I was one of three co-founders of Going Deep, the Long Traditional Story Retreat. Last week I did a one-woman show for adults called Blood, Guts, Spies and Fat Naked Ladies, a wild piece of personal fiction based on truth about the year I lived in Bulgaria in the early 1980s (yup, during Communism). I've got a large collection of stories of the Turkish trickster Nasruddin Hodja, most of which I translated from various languages.

What else? I coach storytellers, I teach workshops on using puppets with young children, story stretches and songs, storytelling, writing. More? Oh, right, I give house concerts, conference presentations and keynote speeches, too. Weddings and anniversaries? Yessiree.

When not performing, I search for stories in English, French, Bulgarian and Russian or do (or avoid) office work. I travel around the world (all over the US, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Argentina to date, with an upcoming trip to Chile) telling stories. 

Some of the personal stuff: I'm a reader, a talker, an adventurer. Though I live in Kansas, I'm a New Englander at heart, the youngest of seven kids. I love to cook, eat, play around in the garden, hang out with friends, listen to music, swim, walk. I have a four-legged office assistant who is meowing at me now to feed him. 

I also like pie. I'm still looking for the best restaurant pie on earth. Fruit, not cream.