Hey Parents...how do you play paticake?

Cafe Society
1

Or is it “Pattycake”?

Anyway, this was a rather popular game for me when I was, oh, say TWO, so it’s been a while since last time I played. In joking around today, though, we started goofing off and came to realize…no one knows how to play. Obviously, it’s got something to do with clapping, then high fiving one another…but when do you go with two hands, one hand, cross over, what?

Just a bit of random curiosity. As you can tell, it’s a rather slow day at work :slight_smile:

2

My kid would rather play Halo…Go figure.

3

I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once and I remember how it’s done:

  1. Clap your hands together, then clap your hands against child’s hands. Continue to alternate and repeat while chanting:

“Pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man;
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.”

  1. Make rolling motion with your hands (encourage child to imitiate) while saying:

"Roll it . . . "

  1. Pat your hands together as if making a flat cake between them (encourage child to imitate) while saying:

"And pat it . . . "

  1. Make scribbling motion with index finger on palm of other hand (encourage child to imitate) while saying:

"And mark it with a ‘B’ . . . "

  1. Tickle child and say:

“And put it in the oven for Baby and me!”

4

“Pattycake, Pattycake Bakerman
Bake me a cake as fast as you can
First you roll it,
pat it,
and mark it with a B ,
And put it in the oven for baby and me”

Clap babies hands, when you get to the words “roll it” make rolling motion with the babies hands, then you pat the babies belly with their hand and then make a B on their belly and then go back to clapping their hands.

5

oops Snug beat me to the explaination, and did a better job of it too!

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I know the lyrics, I was just more curious as to the pattern to the pattying (huh?). Is it two hands, one hand, other hand, two hands, repeat, or is there more to it?

Oh, and thanks for helping answer a truly stupid question :slight_smile: But hey, hopefully one of these days I’ll have kids of my own, and the last thing they’ll need is being ridiculed for not knowing pattycake, right?