Hand Clapping Songs

This article discusses the connection that hand clapping songs have with all kinds of development in children, from the social to the musical. A YouTube search revealed that the repertoire has changed a great deal since I was a kid. "The Spades," for example, was nowhere to be found, except for two words that served as an introduction to another "updated" chant (I remember that "The Spades," a camp favorite, had some truly complicated motions).

My search also revealed that this seems to be an activity done mostly by girls (at least in public). I wonder why?

Here are some hand clapping rhymes and jump rope rhymes from my neck of the Midwestern woods (somewhere around Terre Haute, Indiana, I believe).