Clapping games
Channel: British Library
Date: 2016-10-13

Clapping games first became popular in the UK in the 1960s having travelled over from America. Children today play many different kinds of clapping games; some routines are fast and difficult, involving complicated dance moves. Others are slow and easy like those performed to the song ‘a sailor went to sea, sea, sea’. Children get ideas for their clapping games from all sorts of places; they might learn them at school, from pop songs, from brothers and sisters, or from poems or rhymes. These games can be played in a number of situations; to pass time while waiting in line, to play with a large circle of friends, or to keep hands warm on a cold day.

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