E

Distributing the materials, the teacher begins, keeping in mind the aim of the exercise; namely, to teach exactness in following directions, and to show with what wonderful symmetry each crystal is constructed on the plan of six equal sides and angles.

Insist on the child doing his best, and do not hurry in giving directions.

Give directions but once, and see that all follow.

If scissors are not provided for the school, they can be. brought from home for the time, cautioning the children to guard the points by placing them in a stopper from a bottle.

The teacher may prepare from thin white paper, hexagonal shaped patterns of about an inch, or an inch and a half on a side, one for each child. If preferred, these papers may be bought by the quantity, at a reasonable rate.*

Before commencing the exercise there may be a little review of the causes of snow, and the fact of a snowflake being made up of several crystals noted. Then "Who would like to make a snow crystal to-day?"

There will be a ready response to this, no doubt.

J. L. Hammett Co., 352 Washington St., Boston, Mass.

Fig.5. Open.

Folding

Place the hexagon on the desk, the straight edge parallel with the edge of the front horizontal side of the desk.

Fold the front edge AB over to the back edge CD. Now fold the lower right hand corner F over to the upper left

Once a greede dog had a peice of meat in his mouth, and he crosst a stream and, his shadow shown in the water.

And he snaped at it and droped his meat and it sank to the botton, and he never got it again.

"But there," she said to herself, "those children have been running wild all summer long-chasing the birds and butterflies, and reading from the wonderful book of nature, and they have just forgotten how to spell - that's all. will come back to them soon. I must be patient."

It

board.

"They have not settled down to study yet," she said "I must have patience — but, oh, dear!"

A few days after she asked them to write a letter telling how they spent Saturday and she read :

Saturday I play that we were ploice-man there wear robers to. Sunday we went to the lake and went fishing. We came home eat are supper. Yours truly,

Days lengthened into weeks and there was not much improvement. She could not tell what was the matter. The class was a bright one - well taught before they came to her-ready and willing to study, but alas! only a few of the brightest improved at all.

At last, one evening, after looking over a very poor set of papers, she wrote the following letter:

The Editor, PRIMARY EDUCATION:

Dear Madam,-Can you, or any of your contributors, suggest a good way to teach spelling? I do not remember having seen anything in your paper on that subject, and a little light is sorely needed. Yours very truly,

MISS WORRY.

O wonderful world of white !
When trees are hung with lace,
And the rough winds chide,

And snowflakes hide

Each bleak unsheltered place:

When birds and brooks are dumb-what then?

O, round we go to the green again.

leaves

wich

about

cough (caught)

two-hot

ground

- G. Cooper

road

because

know

clothes

before

dose (does)

almost

flower

great

They had had fifteen minutes to study the words from the

Tommy Stringer, the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Boy

(This little boy, with only two senses, touch and smell, is accomplishing marvellous things in the Jamaica Plain (Mass.) Kindergarten for the Blind. Tommy has been learning Sloyd, and we copy the result from the Boston Globe. He is eleven years of age.-ED.)

Professor Larsson required that his little pupil should attend two lessons a week, cach lesson to be of two hours' duration. His progress has been remarkable. It has been very interesting and instructive to watch the great possibilities he has demonstrated with touch and smell, the only two senses he possesses. He uses the ordinary wood-working hand tools and is taught practically in the same manner as a seeing pupil. The only tools he uses which differ from the other pupils are the rule with raised numbers, and instead of a lead pencil, he uses, in marking, an awl.

Tommy's sense of touch is so keen that he is not satisfied until his work matches with the rule and square. If there should be a variation of an eighth of an inch aside from the measure, he is made more unhappy by the slip than the ordinary boy is by a mistake of more than a quarter of an inch.

In the art of nail driving Tommy has been a veritable conqueror. The accuracy with which he gauges his strokes and the skill he displays in the handling of the wood might put to shame many a more advanced pupil. This little deaf and dumb lad is not dismayed by the task of driving a nail through a piece of wood scarcely thicker than a piece of So skilfully does he manipulate his tools that the entering stroke is effected without severing the wood. He never allows his nail to sling to one side or the other, as His sensitive fingers at once many seeing pupils do. detect the imperfection.

veneer.

The wonderful results which can be developed from an acute sense of touch and smell have had wide demonstration in the case of this unusual child. During his year's instruction at the sloyd school Tommy has learned to recognize eight different kinds of woods by his sense of smell. This is very rare in the case of an ordinary boy.

It is very interesting to examine different specimen's of Tommy's handicraft. In the making of these different articles the child exhibits the keenest delight. It is a study in psychology to watch the play of emotions that will light up his little face as his sensitive touch reveals to the alert brain the progress that he is making in the creation of a new object.

Not satisfied with the making of an article, Tommy has kept an account of the process of its manufacture and the mpression it has given him. Thus, by means of the square iting which the blind employ, the child has made a record, in abstract form, of the work he has accomplished through the year. These brief compositions are a delightful contrast to some of the literary work that comes from the hands of many a pupil who enjoys sight. In the course of a dozen large sheets of paper which form Tommy's sloyd diary, there does not appear an error or a blurred letter to mar the cleanliness or correctness of the copy.

This comprehensive little diary narrates that its youthful compiler has completed ten useful articles during the year. The articles have been chosen with reference to Tommy's apparent advance in overcoming difficulties in the

exercises.

The first article which he finished was a little stool made by saw, hammer and nails. But the masterpiece of workmanship that has given the young carpenter his greatest delight is a bird house, in the construction of which he used twelve different tools.

"The mind impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies whate're it sees

And through the labyrinth of life holds fast the clue That education gave it false or true."

D

Sunshine Scheme

K. New York City

OWN among the tenements and fussy, fuming factories of the East Side they built a new kindergarten home, as broad, as generous as their own philanthropy, all filled and flooded with sunshine. Those who lovingly work among the poor of great cities know well the blessed lesson of such a room. For in the homes where poverty and privation are heirlooms — aye! and pain and painit might well sadden, if no longer surprise us, to find how darkly the mental and spiritual light is filtered through the age-encrusted windows of the soul.

But the material sunshine to hide from it behind blind brick walls in tottering rookeries, to screen it with ragged remnants of curtains, to mutilate it with smoke and the stains of time hopeless and helpless the poor who live thus. In very love of heaven's light, then, we had struggled in our old kindergarten room "to make sunshine in shady places"— walled in and warded by brick battlements though we were.

Still in certain seasons, for a part of each day the sunshine came to visit us, and the first golden arrow that shot athwart the restless heads burst the bonds of childish joy. Quick would come the response of delight-the smiling salute, and then the ripple of some "good-morning" song swelling blithely from table to table until the remotest and darkest corner gave answer. Small wonder, then, that soon we materialized our happiness; that sunshines blazed from blackboards and brightened the room in mimic semblance; cut and pasted, sewn and woven, drawn and painted and twisted until finally it gleamed steadily from the wall, a great pictured word and we had "found ourselves."

Out of the darkness and gloom came a tiny voice calling "Up, sisters, wake and be doing, the sunshine is falling; Warm is his breath as the clinging embrace of our mother; Up and still up, till the meaning of life we discover." But at last we stood upon the threshold of our new home, having struggled through the darkness and found our sweet reward.

Three bright and bonny rooms in what spirit shall we answer their cheer and make them homes? We had evolved after patient months this axiom from childish lips :

"To be a sunshine child is to be happy and good to others." Lo, behold! one of our rooms soon smiling in heaven's own blue frames and borders for helpful pictures growing under eager little fingers — the tiniest feeling the thrill of love and sympathy for "our beauty room." Then from the wall came the answering motto, "Love" in true bluethe essence of love. And beneath a dainty conceit — a bas-relief of a tiny Love scattering flowers as benedictions; and for further joy eame one day and perched upon a shelf a fat little Cupid with one dimpled leg crossed upon his knee, as he played a mandolin. So each and all gave of their best, in love, and made in other lives a little joy.

Then we discovered our second name in glorious robes of red it spoke to us "Joy!" For who would take joy into his life must first know the love of his brother-manthen maybe feel the flame, the fire, the enthusiasm, of noble living.

This leads to our own Sunshine room is it too fanciful a thought? The fiery blood of very life — the physical joy of being-soothed and sustained by the spiritual calm of love giving out of its bounty true blessing of light and sunshine to all men. It is not too fanciful for us to try to live. Our Sunshine room shall then be all glowing in yellow. A great room it is forty-five feet square-two stiff and stern square pillars running up to support the center beam. Parallel lines from every point of view, save where, through four great double windows, the gracious sunbeams entered and danced all day!

So we set the helpful little fingers to work "making paper chains" (I can hear some proper kindergartner say, " Paper chains impossible!") and soon had broken up the lines into eight converging arches a golden semi-canopy, from

its golden rays quite as tall as our tiniest babies.

Then from the center window space the gracious face of our guide and friend looked down upon us, his tender words for the little ones written round about him. Beneath was a bracket in white and gold, and never a day passed without a blossom for Froebel. Even the prim pillars bore their tribute, a bas-relief of Reynolds' "Angel Choir," or a marble angel caryatid upholding in a golden amber vase some feathery branch of blossoms and leaves, making dainty traceries against the dark wood.

Each window lovingly tended some living green thing, while slender lilies and spring blossoms filled bowl and jar. The seasons, with dainty tribute of bird and blossom, crossed the blackboards, and above looked tenderly down the Babe of Bethlehem in His manger cradle.

What could make us more at home than our beloved squirrels and comical bunnies — all the friends of field and farm that the PRIMARY EDUCATION had sent us? So we mounted them on dark backgrounds to nestle among the pictured sunflowers, the dainty groups of Black-eyed Susans and the golden wheat, among which piped the gay "Bob White."

And then came Iris and threw her rainbow bridges across floor and wall, and we knew we had come out of the valley into the light.

Kindergarten Games in the V.

L

School-Room

KATHERINE BEEBE

The Woodman

(Page 12. Part II.)

ET us now live for a while in a northern lumber camp. One of the aisles is a river; in a corner at the back of the room is a saw-mill, made by a number of children joining hands in a circle; a man is in charge of this mill, and a carpenter conveniently serves as his assistant. In the front part of the room are two other men who are in charge of ox-teams. Two others are chosen, who stand in the river, pointers in hand. These pointers are used in gently assisting the logs as they float down the stream towards the saw-mill. It is needless to say that they should be used with discretion.

Several woodmen are chosen, who carry imaginary axes and saws. The rest of the children represent trees, and are planted in the space in front of the desks.

Sing the whole song through while standing in position ready for work, and point dramatically to the objects and groups mentioned in the verses. Then let the industry move on. The woodmen fell the trees one by one, and saw off the branches. The drivers fasten the logs to the oxen

* Part II. "Songs and Games for the Kindergarten." Smith.

them down the stream. The saw-mill man and his helper get them into the mill, which turns round and ound with loud buzzing. As the logs are thus converted into boards, the carpenter proceeds to build a house with them.

Let the game go on until all the trees are felled, the logs sawn, and the house built, and if one wishes it, some of the workmen may live in the house.

The logs will have to be told to go down stream on their feet on account of clean clothes and not always clean floors. Enthusiasts invariably wish to roll down the river in this game.

The Carpenter

(Page 84. Part I.)

"The Woodman "game is naturally followed by a more complicated "Carpenter" game than was possible during the previous process. A simple mode of procedure is to use it as a "motion song," and perhaps teachers will find it most useful in this way, as it brings change and rest to the children without much trouble or expense of time.

The children stand in the aisle, and as they sing the first

The carpenter

FAWARNER

verse they make the hammering motion, pounding invisible nails into an imaginary house.

As the second verse is sung, the children, by a climbing movement of the hands, represent the carpenter going up his ladder. With the words,

"He puts a roof above our heads To shield when rain doth fall," each child may make a gable roof of his own upraised hands, or may so raise his hands that they touch those of his opposite neighbor, and a long, arching

roof be thus formed. In this case two rows of children will have to stand in one aisle.

During the last verse let the children clap their hands in time to the music.

Another and a less simple rendition of this game was a great favorite in our kindergarten. A number of children so placed themselves as to form a hollow square, a small opening being left on one side. This was a house in process of building. A number of small carpenters worked in and around this structure as the words of the song were sung. An old piano cover served as a roof, and a family was ready to move in as soon as the last verse was reached. Nearly every collection of kindergarten songs and games has in it a carpenter play of some sort, so teachers may have a large range of choice. The music of the one in Miss Blow's translation of Froebel's "Mother Play" book is particularly attractive.

In the open space in front of the desks arrange most of the children in a hollow square or oblong, open at one end. This is a blacksmith's shop. In it are two little blacksmith's, one chair for a forge, another for an anvil, and a

The blacksmiths continue to work until the song is finished, until the chorus has been repeated several times, or until all the horses have been shod, as may be expedient.

When in doubt as to any of the details of this game, or any other, let the children themselves step into the breach with suggestions and help. Indeed the more entirely the games can be planned as well as executed by them the better. The details given in these articles have most of them come to the writer in this way, but other more original or better adapted methods should always be substituted for them when developed by any particular set of children.

As a song to be sung at the seats, sitting or standing, this becomes a great favorite with an "anvil chorus " accompaniment. Ask the children to bring old horseshoes and nails to school. Distribute as many as you see fit among your pupils and let them beat time on a horseshoe with a nail during the chorus. To get the resonance from the iron it will be necessary to pass a loop of strong string through each shoe by which it may be held while it is being struck. Let the few who hold the horseshoes during the first chorus pass them to their neighbors for the second one. By rapid striking, a very pretty sleigh-bell accompaniment may be made for any sleighing song in use.

The Tailor

(Page 7. Part II.)

Divide your force of workmen into three parts. One part, standing near their desks, are to be the cutters; the next part, also standing near their desks, are to be the pressers. The third part should be seated cross-legged, and on the desks, if possible, to represent the sewers. This arrangement holds for the first verse. After it is sung, the sewers be- | come cutters, the cutters pressers, and the pressers sewers. the end of the second verse still another change is made, giving each group an opportunity of doing each kind of work.

At

The tailor

FIL WARNER

Description of Simple Objects

F

M. F. HALL

A Game in Composition

OR the child who describes an object not previously named, the exercise is, primarily, one of orderly, coherent, and related thinking; and secondarily, an orderly and exact description, so given that others may tell from the description what the narrator has in mind. Both these things, and in this order, are essential to real constructive work in language.

The children who listen are to hold in mind the various features, or attributes, described, and to think of objects having the characteristics given.

This exercise, with a suitable theme, is useful in any grade or class. In the literature class it may become a fine test both of knowledge and skill.

Some exercises by the youngest children are given as illustrations:

"What I am thinking of is something in this room. has a flat top and four legs. It is small and brown. uses it every day. We all have them at home." The children said: "It is a table."

"I am in many places. Miss

It

Miss

(First Grade)

has one. I am round

and very bright. I have a white face. My two hands are not alike. I lie down a great deal. Every one thinks I am nice." [A WATCH] (Second Grade) "It has six square faces. It has eight corners. It is made of wood. It cannot roll, but it can stand. We draw it sometimes."

[A CUBE] (First Grade)

These are suffcient to show the possibilities of this form of language exercise when used with children. It need scarcely be said that a description of Dr. Johnson at tea; The Three Kings of Longfellow; Robinson Crusoe; Ivanhoe; or other characters of life or of literature will form an inspiring theme for a game with advanced classes.

It is understood, of course, that this exercise need not be limited in its range or theme.

Its greatest value is probably found in the style of clearcut, related, and complete thinking which it requires. The difficulty of the lesson is forgotten because the exercise takes the form of a game. Clear oral narration is more disciplinary than written descriptions, because of the readiness and command of resources that it necessitates.

The efforts of young children are like these:

"I build my house in the bushes or in a hollow tree. I