The Origin Of Daddy Finger
The exact creation of the daddy’s finger nursery rhyme is unknown. This particular tune placed on the internet via a video upload on May 25, 2007. There have been subsequential videos uploaded and enjoyed across many platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion. One theory with the internet it was actually created as a catchy rhyme for advertisement purposes. There are also variants called family fingers as well.
How Does This Rhyme Help Children
When a child is experiencing the world not only are they seeing new colors, touching new textures, and hearing new sounds, they are also learning their own bodies. This particular rhyme through interaction explores the motor function of the fingers. It is a great teaching process for a child to learn the thumb, that the pointing finger is considered your index finger. The finger next to that is your middle finger, then the next is considered your ring finger, and the smallest is your baby finger. With all of these connecting to your palm creates the human hand. Having each one labeled as daddy finger, the mommy finger, the brother, the sister, and the baby teaches a child about family. This also can be incorporated into counting the fingers and that each hand has five. This helps with mathematics. The motor skills are learned as the child is engaged using the rhyme to move each finger and language skills are also used while naming each finger by its proper names.
How Can This Be Used By Parents
Parents can start their child off when they are close to one year old with this fun rhyme. They can sing this to their child and at the same time interact with the child’s fingers to help with motor skills. As the child gets older into the two-year-old and three-year-old age group playing one of the colorful videos would be helpful. This will help with exercise, language, and social/family skills. It also helps with memory skills as the child will remember and want to sing the tune while acting out the finger gestures and names on each finger. It is a fun activity that the whole family can enjoy and be apart of including dads, moms, and siblings.
How Can This Help Teachers
When a child is in pre-school the educator can use this as a fun classroom activity. This again will encourage socialization skills. This can also reinforce the knowledge of each finger and what their names are. This can be used to help with memorization skills and be incorporated into a memory game to see who can remember all the words and help with verbal skills too. The rhyme can help again with exercise as we can make a dance out of it and thus getting the whole body in motion. As the child moves into Kindergarten and even in first-grade levels this can still be an activity an educator can use to formulate even more memory, verbal, and motor skills games from.