Using Gloves with Fingerplays

A fingerplay is a short poem or rhyme that is either spoken or sung.  It involves the use of hands and fingers to act out the words of a song.  A great example is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".  When singing the song, you use your hands to show the actions of the determined little spider.  Today I'm going to show you how to create some gloves that work great with fingerplays and won't break the bank!

First we are going to make a set of birdie gloves.  I have only used them for songs or rhymes that need 5 birdies, so a pair of gloves could be used to make 2 sets.  I picked up these colorful garden gloves at Dollar Tree.  Initially, my plan was to print 5 different birdies on card stock, laminate them and then attach them to the gloves.  Then I saw these adorable little birds not far from gloves and knew they would be perfect.  You can purchase these in bulk from their website and create enough for your entire class if you wanted.

Next I attached Velco dots to the fingertips of the gloves and the other part to the bottom of the birds.  There are two great reasons to use Velcro:

1.  The birdies can "fly away" by being pulled off, rather than just hidden.

2.  The gloves can be used for multiple sets of fingerplay characters.  This saves me money!  Yay!

This is what they look like when assembled.  Here are a few fingerplays to try with your new birdie friends:

The Birdie Family

(tune:  Finger Family)

Daddy birdie, daddy birdie, where are you?
Here I am!  Here I am!  How do you do?

Mommy birdie, mommy birdie, where are you?

Here I am!  Here I am!  How do you do?

Sister birdie, sister birdie, where are you?

Here I am!  Here I am!  How do you do?

Brother birdie, brother birdie, where are you?
Here I am!  Here I am!  How do you do?

Baby birdie, baby birdie, where are you?
Here I am!  Here I am!  How do you do?

Birdie family, birdie family, where are you?

Here we are!  Here we are! How do you do?

  

Five Feathered Birds
(fingerplay)

Five feathered birds sitting on the door;

One flew away and then there were four.

Four feathered birds singing in the tree,

One flew away and then there were three.

Three feathered birds looking at you,

One flew away and then there were two.

Two feathered birds sitting in the sun,

One flew away and then there was one.

One feathered bird looking like a hero,

He flew away and now there are zero!

There were Five in the Nest

(tune: Ten in the Bed)
There were five in the nest and the little one said

“Roll over!  Roll over!”

So they all rolled over and one flew out.

There were four in the nest and the little one said

“Roll over!  Roll over!”

So they all rolled over and one flew out.

There were three in the nest and the little one said

“Roll over!  Roll over!”

So they all rolled over and one flew out.

There were two in the nest and the little one said

“Roll over!  Roll over!”

So they all rolled over and one flew out.

There was one in the nest and the little one said

“Ah!  Good night!”

These are bottle caps and we pretend that they are frogs.  They also make a delightful sound when drummed on a chair, book or tile floor.  I use them with "Five Green and Speckled Frogs".

The next set of gloves uses these fun foam puzzle mats.  For this project I popped out the numbers 1-10.

Using low temperature hot glue, I attached them to the inside of the gloves.  I wanted to be able to hold my hands with my palms to my students.  Ideally, I'd like to have a set of these for each student in class, but right now I just have a couple of sets.  I may use them at a workstation some day.

Song that work great with the 1 to 10 gloves: "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" "Count Up, Count Down" by Hap Palmer "I Can Count Almost Anything" by Jack Haartman (I use the video for this.) "Chicken Count" by Jack Haartman This fun song by the Bounce Patrol Kids that teaches counting 1-10 in four languages. FUN! I may go back and scavenge the letters for "Bingo" and make a few sets of gloves for that song.  Although I wouldn't have a class set, I could invite four or five students to the front to lead the group. Ideas for using the gloves are limitless when you consider how easy it is to print the characters that you want on cardstock, laminate and attach them with velcro.  This would be fun to use with Peter and the Wolf.  That may be the next set that I create!