Popular hand games and hand game songs for toddlers and children! Full of ideas for childcare/early childhood education.
Having a rich repertoire of fingerplay songs keeps children from getting bored and gives adults a sense of ease.
You can use them in many ways—while preparing for the next activity, or as a calm introduction to help children listen attentively.
Above all, children love fingerplay songs with their variety of themes and rhythms.
Adults will surely feel soothed watching little ones smile and mimic the motions with their tiny hands.
Be sure to use this article to learn some new fingerplay songs!
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Popular Hand Games and Hand-Game Songs for Toddlers and Children! Full of Ideas for Childcare (1–10)
The Bento Bus
The hand-play song “Obento Bus” is about packing lots of different items into a lunchbox.
Imagining the lunchbox as a bus, the song describes loading various menu items onto the lunchbox bus from different places.
As voices call out from here and there—“Let me ride the lunchbox bus!”—a variety of foods climb aboard.
Since it has a counting-play element, when you do the hand motions, sing while using your fingers to show the names of the items and how many you’re packing.
Because you’ll be stuffing the lunchbox bus with so many things, use your arms to show how it gets more and more crammed, too!
Mickey Mouse March
Let’s try a hand-play activity to the tune of the Mickey Mouse March, a theme song beloved by children all over the world! It’s not just a hand game—it also helps with learning numbers.
Using numbers you can show with your hands, we’ll bring out various Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio, and Dumbo! The numbers you form with both hands can represent each character’s distinctive features.
Let’s express cute Disney characters and have fun with hand play!
Ten thousand feet in the Alps
“Arupusu Ichimanjaku” is a hand-clapping game played in pairs, facing each other.
Since you match hands and make contact, the two players need to be perfectly in sync.
You clap to the melody and flip your joined hands over.
There’s a simple version with fewer movements and a more elaborate version with more actions.
In the version with more movements, whether you use your left or right hand at each moment determines if the pattern comes out correctly, so the players need even better coordination.
In fact, this song doesn’t just have the famous verse—there are actually up to 29 verses.
If you’re curious, be sure to check them out!
Popular Hand Games & Hand-Play Songs for Toddlers and Children! Packed with Ideas for Childcare (11–20)
Thunder God has arrived.
When thunder rumbles, where do you hide? In “Here Comes Mr.
Thunder,” various parts of the body—starting with your belly button—get hidden when Mr.
Thunder appears.
At first, you mimic the sound of his arrival by pretending to beat a drum, and make Mr.
Thunder’s horns by raising one finger on each hand.
After that, when a body part that Mr.
Thunder will take is called out, you quickly cover that spot with your hands.
It’s not just the classic belly button, so listen carefully to find out which part Mr.
Thunder is coming for next!
greengrocer’s shop
A fun hand-play song where you quickly name the vegetables lined up at the greengrocer, called “The Greengrocer’s Shop.” In the main part of the song, you clap your hands and make a searching pose or a thinking pose to match the lyrics.
After that, when you start answering the names of vegetables one after another, you clap twice each time you correctly say a vegetable that the greengrocer would have.
You keep repeating this, and if you say something that isn’t there, you make an X sign with your arms.
It’s also fun to adapt it into different versions—not just a greengrocer, but a bakery, a sweets shop, and more!
What shall we make with rock, scissors, paper?
Gu-Choki-Pa, What Shall We Make? is a hand-play game that uses rock-paper-scissors shapes: gu (rock), choki (scissors), and pa (paper) to create all sorts of things.
You form gu, choki, or pa with each hand and combine them to make different objects.
For example, if you make one hand a gu and the other a choki, then place the gu on top of the choki, it becomes a snail.
Snails and helicopters are well-known examples, but it’s also fun to get creative and make your own originals! We also recommend teaming up with friends to make something bigger.
It’s a hand-play song that not only exercises the fingers but also enriches the imagination.
I wonder if the rice crackers are done.
Crispy, delicious rice crackers take center stage in “Has the Rice Cracker Finished Baking?” Gather a group, and everyone starts with their palms face down on the table.
One person repeatedly sings the title phrase while pointing in turn to each player’s palm.
The person who is pointed at on the final syllable, “na,” flips their hand over as if turning a rice cracker.
Repeat this process until everyone has managed to flip their palms up; then the last person who flipped their hand begins singing again and repeats the same actions.
If someone’s palm ends up facing down again, that’s the signal that their rice cracker is done baking—they pull their hand back.
You can add win conditions, such as whoever gets both rice crackers (both hands) baked first wins!