A child’s life is all about learning. They usually play educational games that aid in their development, they listen to songs and they are curious, which means they explore and interact with anything and everything that catches their attention. Their hands and motor skills, of course, are the mediums through which a lot, if not most, of the learning takes place. And because they play such a vital role is a child’s life, children ought to learn how to use them productively.
What it is
The Finger Family is a nursery rhyme which makes use of the hand to create a learning experience for children. It teaches them about family and its importance by creating an analogous comparison with the fingers on a hand. Much like all the fingers on a hand play a key role in helping the hand function as it should, a family functions based on the members that constitute it. Each finger corresponds to a member of the family, starting with the thumb and calling it “Daddy finger”, or something else in the numerous other variations. At any moment members can be interchanged or substituted with cousins, aunts, uncles, pets, letter, toys, and other educational objects. This allows kids to make use of their imagination. In particular, it is very helpful in the development of both motor and language skills because it engages the fingers, since children emulate the actions they witness, and teaches them the words that correspond to each one.
Additional Resources
There are a number of audiovisual resources that can be very helpful in this educational process. Some websites offer videos, usually animated, of a diversity of finger families, along with music and the corresponding words. The traditional lyrics make mention of the father, mother, brother, sister and baby, but there are plenty of other fun versions: