Finger plays can encourage parents and children to interact together in a fun way.
Newsletters or Social Media
Send copies of finger plays home in newsletters or post on your class blog or website.
*Parents would also get a kick out of a video where the children do finger plays with their classmates.
Finger Fun Family Book
Let children decorate a pocket folder. Each week as you learn a finger play let them put a copy of the words in their book. Practice saying/reading the rhyme throughout the week and then send it home on Friday. Ask them to share the finger play with someone in their family for weekend homework. Invite parents and friends to write comments and compliments on the page.
Take Home Backpack
Each week as children learn a finger play make a backpack book from a lunch bag. Glue the words inside and invite children to decorate it with markers or crayons. Send home the backpack every Friday and encourage the children to “teach” their family the finger play.
How do you make a backpack?
Materials: lunch bags, pipe cleaners, hole punch, copies of finger plays
Directions: Turn a lunch bag upside down and punch two holes in the top as shown. Take a pipe cleaner and insert it in the holes to make a handle. Lift the top flap and fold the bottom of the bag up under the flap. Crease. Open and glue a copy of the finger play inside. Let children decorate with crayons or makers.
If you missed my webinar on finger plays you can watch it now with this link:
https://home.edweb.net/webinar/earlychildhood20190325/
Check out the new packet that Carolyn Kisloski and I have put together with 60 of our favorite finger plays. Included in this packet are full sheet, illustrated finger plays for you to use in the classroom. You may want to enlarge the pages for shared reading or make a classroom book with them. Also included in the packet are half-sheet illustrated copies of each finger play that you may send home with each child to share with their families.
