Fingerplay Nursery Rhymes To Build Fine Motor Skills In Kids

Fine motor skills allow the kids to control and manipulate their fingers and they can do many useful activities in their day to day life. You can develop kids' fine motor skills through fingerplay nursery rhymes. It's fun, easy and entertaining! Little learners love to sing! And if singing is accompanied by hand and finger actions, they will enthusiastically join you in the song.

So introduce some fingerplay rhymes to your children, which are accompanied by a series of movements that mimic the lyrics. They are one of the best ways to teach them how to control and manipulate their hands and fingers. There are plenty of new and traditional rhymes to enjoy the fingreplay. Let's learn about the popular fingerplay songs and how to act them out.

Five Little Monkeys 
“Five little monkeys jumping on the bed” - Hold up your five fingers and rest the elbow on the other hand. And now slowly bounce your arm up and down
“One fell off and bumped his head” -  Hold up one finger and roll your hand down towards the floor
“Mama called the doctor and the doctor said” – Put your little finger to your cheek and thumb to your ear (like a phone)
“No more monkeys jumping on the bed”  - Wag your index finger
(Repeat the same with four, three, two and one little monkeys)

This Little Piggy
“This little piggy went to market” -  wiggle the big toe
“This little piggy stayed home” - wiggle the index toe
“This little piggy had roast beef” -  wiggle the middle toe
“This little piggy had none” – wiggle the fourth toe
“And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home” -  wiggle the little toe and suddenly tickle sole of your kid

Pat-a-cake
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man”  - clap hands
“Bake me a cake as fast as you can” - clap hands
“Roll it and pat it” - Pat the stomach of your little one
“And mark it with a B” - Draw a letter “B” or first letter of your kid's name on his/her palm

Five Little Ducks
“Five little ducks went out one day” - Hold up your five fingers
“Over the hills and far away” - Move your hand and arm up and down
“Mother Duck said “Quack, quack, quack, quack” - Form a beak with hands and then close and open it
“But only four little ducks came back” - Now hold up your four fingers
(Repeat the same with four, three, two and one little ducks)

Surprising Benefits Of Fingerplay in Kids Development

Fingerplay not only entertains the kids but also plays an important role in kids' development. Introduce fingerplay songs to preschoolers as it helps them in developing language and listening skills, enhancing motor skills and improving social skills. There are lots of fingerplay songs, some familiar and some unpopular. Do fingerplay while chanting the rhymes, it is a great way to build language as new words are added to kids' vocabulary.

Your kids will light up as they sing their favorite nursery rhymes, accompanied by fingerplay. Let's learn about some more benefits of fingerplay -

Boost learning skills

Fingerplay songs foster memorizing the information and enhances the ability to recall what has been learned. Action songs develop children's learning skills as they listen and watch the actions. So, kids grasp the information visually, musically and verbally as well. Isn't that great?

Develop fine and gross motor skills

Children use their fingers, hands, legs, head and other body parts to do fingreplay and perform actions while enchanting the nursery rhymes. The controlled actions help the kids and preschooler to control body and mind movement.

Improve hand-eye coordination

Through fingerplay and kids' action rhymes, children can learn to coordinate their hands and fingers and also improve hand-eye coordination.

Develop in listening skills

Kids will carefully follow and listen to their teacher or parents, who are teaching them the action or fingerplay songs. This help preschoolers and children to develop listening skills so that they can follow the directions and perform actions.

Add new words to kids' vocabulary

Fingerplay songs not only boost the language skills but also improves their vocabulary. As they sing the rhymes, they learn new words and at time manipulate words and songs. Singing nursery rhymes is truly a fun musical way to reinforce vocabulary and understand meaning of words as they perform actions.