Home Occupations for Boys and Girls Part 31

Let mother or older brother draw on cardboard a simple strong outline.

Provide a strong steel pin (hat-pin or mourning-pin will do) and a piece of folded cloth for a cus.h.i.+on. Follow the outline by p.r.i.c.king in it a succession of holes. The rough side is the right side of the decorated card. The card may be hung up as a transparency, or may be made up into blotter or calendar; or, if the outline be that of a vegetable or a fruit, it will make up into a Thanksgiving place card.

Very beautiful effects are produced by p.r.i.c.king the surface as well as the outline, a form of embossing, but this is a great strain on the nerves. Let the child work for only a few moments at a time, and be sure that the light is good and the drawing is distinct.

=Sewing= (_Cardboard_, _worsted_, _silk or chenille_, _needle_, _punch_)

It is a disputed question now whether or not the cardboard sewing of the kindergarten, once considered so essential, should be used at all. Some condemn it entirely; others use it sparingly. Many replace it with sewing on cloth and other materials soft and flexible, which lend themselves to the kind of st.i.tching required later in everyday sewing.

We cannot now enter into the discussion, but common-sense rules here as elsewhere.

Cards with designs already drawn and perforated may be bought, but the mother need not feel that she must depend upon these. Old visiting and invitation cards may be used for the purpose. We give a few examples of objects pretty and useful which may be made of this material. These will suggest others to the active-minded child. Get punch at kindergarten supply store; from 50 cents up.

1. Gift Card. Cut a square of cardboard 5 5 inches. With a needleful of red worsted let the child sew upon this card three straight candles in st.i.tches one inch long. You may first punch in the bottom of the card three holes as guides. Put them in a row equidistant from each other.

Make parallel to these a row of three dots in pencil. The child will push the needle through one hole _from below_ and put it through the dot above, making his own hole. So proceed till finished. A flame may be drawn with yellow chalk at the upper end of each candle, to make it more realistic. This card may be used to stand a candlestick upon, or to send as a birthday card.

A similar card with the red st.i.tches lying horizontally will picture firecrackers ready to be set off. Use as a mat for a match safe.

2. Cover for Medicine Gla.s.s. Draw a circle five inches in diameter. Cut this out. Parallel to the edge draw a circle four inches in diameter.

Make dots about 1/2 inch apart along this second circle. Punch holes through these dots. With worsted, ravelings or chenille let the child sew once around this circle. Then go around the other way to fill up all the gaps left the first time. Use as cover for gla.s.s of medicine. Line the bottom with clean, white paper.

Vary by overcasting, or from a central hole take long radiating st.i.tches to the holes in the circ.u.mference like the spokes of a wheel.

3. Toy Umbrella. The above circle with spokes may be made into a toy umbrella if a slender stick be run through for a handle. Stick a pin about an inch from the top to keep the umbrella part from slipping down.

4. Bookmark. Cut an oblong card 2 6 inches. Draw upon this a row of parallel oblique lines about one inch apart and one inch long. Punch holes through the ends of the lines at the bottom, sew one slanting line to show the child, and let him finish the row. A similar oblong will make a napkin ring if the ends be brought together and tied with the ends of the worsted.

Squares, oblongs, crosses, etc., may thus be punched and sewed.

If no punch is obtainable, make the holes with a coa.r.s.e needle or strong pin.

=Paper Tearing= (See page 54)

=Paper Cutting=

This is another Froebelian occupation. Some suggestions have been given elsewhere. (See page 54.) We will speak here of a more definite series of progressive steps.

Take a square of white paper. Fold once to make an oblong. Keep folded and fold once more, which gives a small square. From the corners of this square cut pieces, large or small. Keep these. Open the paper and lay it down. Then arrange around it the cut-off corners to make a design. They may be arranged in a variety of ways. The pieces cut off the corners may be of various shapes.

Vary another square by cutting into it, after it has been folded, triangles or other figures. Open and arrange around it these cut-off pieces. When a satisfactory design has thus been made, it may be pasted on a pleasing background of paper.

In kindergarten training, checked paper is provided and the cuttings are made from lines drawn upon this according to a progressive system.

=Parquetry= (_Colored papers_, _paste_, _kindergarten slat or match for paste-stick_)

This occupation has its parallel in the tablets. The designs made temporarily with the circles, squares, etc., of wood may be put into more permanent form with the parquetry papers. These are circles, squares, triangles, etc., of colored papers, the unit of size being the inch. There are 1,000 in a package, embracing the six colors--red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, with two shades and two tints of each, besides neutral tones, and black and white.

1. Easter Card. Give the child an oblong piece of gray cardboard, six inches long, and some yellow circles. Let him paste a row of circles for dandelion heads and then chalk in the green stems. Give to father for an Easter card.

Red and yellow circles may be cut in half and so arranged as to suggest tulips. (See page 122.)

2. Frieze. Let the child make designs for a frieze for the doll-house parlor, arranging circles and squares successively or alternately on a strip of paper. Or he can make a design for the doll-house kitchen oilcloth by pasting squares or circles (one square or circle surrounded by others) in a square unit.

An inexpensive paste for this work may be made of gum tragacanth. Buy five cents' worth of the powdered gum. Put a tablespoonful into an empty mucilage bottle and fill with water. In a few moments it will dissolve and thicken. Use more or less, according to thickness desired.

=Weaving= (_Colored kindergarten weaving mats_, _weaving needle_)

This is one of the most popular of kindergarten occupations.

Primitive man early learned to interlace the branches of trees to make for himself a shelter, and to weave together coa.r.s.e fibres to make his crude garments. In course of ages great skill was acquired in thus using all kinds of flexible materials; artistic baskets were produced of raffia and reeds, and fine garments of linen, wool and cotton. Beautiful effects in color and form were introduced, the designs usually having a symbolic meaning.

Froebel devised, for the expression of this natural tendency, a series of exercises with colored paper, which gave practice in selection of color harmonies, in designing, in counting, and which led to skill and neatness in work.

Loom-weaving has been described on another page. (90.) In many kindergartens it now entirely supersedes the paper-weaving, which we will here briefly describe.

1. If you do not care to buy the regular kindergarten weaving mats, you may use smooth gray or brown wrapping paper cut into four-inch squares.

In such a square cut _two_ slits 1/2 inch apart and one inch long. From some pretty paper cut a strip one inch wide and two inches long and insert in the slit in the mat, pasting the ends of the strip to the under side of the mat.

2. Cut _three_ or _four_ slits in similar mats and weave into them one-inch or half-inch strips, using narrower ones as the child gains skill. Weave such a strip under one and over one; then weave another, under two and over two, etc.; thus a variety of effects may be produced and the child meanwhile has practice incidentally in simple counting.

Such a mat may be used to cover a gla.s.s of drinking water or medicine gla.s.s.

3. A larger mat may be made of pretty paper cut into comparatively fine slits. Paste upon this mat a square of smooth paper as a kind of lining; fold cornerwise and paste two edges together, making a kind of cornucopia.

4. Scent-Bag. A scent-bag may be made by putting between the mat and the lining described above a thin piece of cotton-batting, sprinkled with scent.

5. Oilcloth or Felt. Instead of paper, mats may be woven of plain oilcloth or of felt. Have two colors of each material, one for the mat and one for the strips.

On a 5-inch square of the material draw four parallel lines one inch apart and one inch from the top and bottom. Then using these as guide lines, cut four slits and weave in and out as with the paper weaving.

Ribbon may be used for the woof if desired. Such a mat may be used for a lamp-mat or for a flower-pot mat.

Among the reasons for discarding the paper-weaving are the following: The colors are somewhat intense, and it is not always easy to secure good harmonies; the care necessary to avoid tearing the delicate paper and soiling the delicate colors is often a trial to highly-strung children. Therefore they should not work at it too long at a time. A weaving needle comes with the kindergarten weaving papers.

=Paper-Folding=

We give here _only a very few_ of the innumerable forms which may be made by folding paper according to exact directions. Mother may conduct such a little play while she is sewing and the child is on the floor or at the table. But directions must be exact and explicit. After once having told what to do in quiet, distinct, clear language, do not repeat. Train the child to hear accurately the first time.

Papers in many tones may be obtained from the kindergarten supply stores, but any exact square of white paper or of smooth brown wrapping paper will do.

Place the simple open square before the child, the edge directly in front of him. Call it a tablecloth and ask where the different members of the family sit. If able to wield the scissors, let him fringe the edge all around.

1. Book. Give a second square and, showing him which are the front corners, tell him to take hold of these and fold the paper over so that the front edge is just on a line with the back edge. Let him iron the table cloth (crease the fold with his thumb nail) so as to make a sharp line when opened. This makes a little book or tent. Ask what he can read in the book; who camps out in the tent; etc.

2. Window. Make another tent. Keep the tent in front of the child and tell him to open it and then to fold the left side over so that the left edge exactly meets the right edge. Crease and open, and the result is a window with four panes. Have the child tell what he plays he can see through it.

3. Tunnel. Fold a square once through the middle as before. Open and notice the sharp line made by the crease. Now fold the front edge to meet exactly _this line_. Open and then fold the back edge to meet this line. Open in such a way that the form when standing makes a little tunnel. Roll a marble under it.