String Games (Creative Learning Series)

String games provides step by step instructions will illustrations for making livers and interesting string figures. The fun filled figures created by using strings of all sorts not only augment memory and imagination of young children but also enrich their eye hand coordination.

Arvind Gupta graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1975 has written over the books on science activities translated more than fifty books and presented seventy films on science activities.

String is used for a number of things from tying parcels to making bags and nets. Everyone needs string or something to tie with. This something is different in different parts of the world. the Eskimo uses thin strips of sealaskin to lash together his sledges or to fasten an axe head to its shaft. Vegetable fibres are a very common form of string among natives we ourselves use raffia in a number of was. Sutli is very commonly used in India for tying things together. Some native Australians use human hair the women grow it for their men folk to use while others use the great sinews form the Kangaroo’s legs.

One common habit which almost everyone has is of fiddling and playing with anything that happens to be in their hands. You see it in buses when people fold or pleat their tickets and you see it in when pieces of string are knotted and twisted about.

It is easy to picture a group of natives idling over the mending of thief fishing net. One person fiddles an odd length of twine ties into a loop until his neighbour exclaims why you have just made a house of string. Some one else might now be inspired to copy the same string picture. This is probably how most the 750 documented string games were invented.

We can’t be very sure but this sure but this is how many of the string games started. For you go where you will to the arctic north or to the islands of the Pacific String games are everywhere. The Eskimos with their long winter darkness, lasting for months had plenty of time and became very clever at making string picture. They will show you string pictures of deer and other animals of birds, kayaks (skinboats) and suck like. The Navaho and Apache natives of America are adept at making tipis (tents) and little animals like natural for how would an Eskimo make a string picture of a palm tree or an Australian of a polar bear.

String games are great fun. They exercise your memory and your imagination. They are great for hand and eye coordination. At times the step by step instructions and illustrations for making a string figure might look difficult but the actual making of the figure might be really simple! So don’t panic if you have problems in your first few attempts. Just go back to the beginning and start again. Soon you will have a good feel for the string.

It is best to start with the easier figures and as you feel more comfortable to go on to make those figures that have more steps and are more complicated. At first you will have to remember all the steps. But very soon your fingers will remember them for you. So learn these string figures and share them with your friends. They probably will show you some new ones. If you keep experimenting who known you might invent some wonderful string figures of your own. So always carry a string in your pocket.