University of Calgary: ‘Fortune tellers’ paper game helps children acquire fine motor and language skills
Making “fortune tellers” — a folded paper game children hold on their fingers and thumbs and practice counting and “telling fortunes” with — has been a time-treasured craft and play activity for generations across cultures.
One of the earliest known paper-folding instruction books is Japanese, dated to 1797; German educators also encouraged paper folding in 19th-century kindergarten curricula. In English, “fortune tellers” are sometimes called salt cellars, chatterboxes or cootie catchers; in my own family heritage language, Dutch, they are happertje (meaning “bite”).
This single activity integrates and provides a context for children to acquire and apply key concepts and skills from important domains of early development. These include physical health and well-being, including fine motor manipulative skills; language and cognitive development, which includes word knowledge; and social competence.
The activity promotes connected, accelerated and robust understanding through guided, engaged play.
Experiential learning in a game
It is important to underscore that different domains of children’s early development are interrelated and interdependent.
Orchestrating activities that exploit interaction among the domains supports young children in their quest to unite disparate or discrete “bits and pieces” of concept and skill understanding. In this way children have practice bringing different tasks and embodied knowledge into a coherent conceptual system.
In children, experiential learning that engages neurocircuity connecting the brain and hands and is mediated through adult talk is key to learning language for making meaning in the brain.
A child seen working with paper explaining something to an adult.
Talking with children while assisting them with hands-on activities is important for language and literacy development. (Hetty Roessingh), Author provided (no reuse)
The psychologist Jean Piaget describes the early development needs of children as concrete learners, meaning direct contact with objects and materials in real time. The importance of the “more knowledgeable other” and the role of language interactions in supporting ongoing learning was underscored by the psychologist Lev Vygotsky.
Different learning goals
Let’s isolate some important learning goals that a fortune teller task supports.
Fine motor manipulative and fine motor literacy skills are developed through scissor work to cut a square. Working on a good pincer grip through handling crayons and pencils happens when children print messages and numbers.
Folding, creasing, cutting, colouring, drawing and writing/printing supported by adults talking with children helps children learn procedural language and specialized vocabulary connected to numeracy and visual spatial concepts like diagonal, triangle, half.
And concepts of shape are foundational to children’s ability to recognize letters that underpin literacy learning. When children play with their fortune tellers, they practice counting out loud connected to finger movement.
As a birthday greeting
The social and emotional domain can be developed when children write thoughtful wishes for birthdays. Young children can start with drawing balloons, cake and candles to go under the flaps of a birthday greeting fortune teller card. Such activities promote emotional well-being for both recipient and sender.