thumb|300px|[[Sansukumi-ken|Mushi-ken, a Japanese hand game (1809)]]
Hand games are games played using only the hands of the players. Hand games exist in a variety of cultures internationally, and are of interest to academic studies in ethnomusicology and music education. Hand games are used to teach music literacy skills and socio-emotional learning in elementary music classrooms internationally.
Examples of hand games
- Arm wrestling
- Bloody knuckles
- Chopsticks (sticks)
- The circle game
- Clapping games (Pat-a-cake and variations like Mary Mack)
- Fingerhakeln
- Hand cricket
- Mercy
- Morra (finger counting)
- Odds and evens
- Red hands (or hand-slap game)
- Rock paper scissors
- Sansukumi-ken
- Thumb war (or thumb wrestling)
- "Where are your keys?" (language acquisition game)
Less strictly, the following may be considered hand games:
- Fingers (drinking game, but debatable since game can be played without the drink)
- Jacks (uses jacks)
- Knife game (uses knife)
- Spellbinder (uses paper and pencil)
- Stick gambling (uses a stick)
- String games, such as cat's cradle
See also
- Fingerboarding
- Fingerplay
- Hand jive
- Hand Shadows
- Thumb twiddling