Part 5

_Dramatic play._ Let the children dramatize these lessons, using their own experiences with the iceman, milkman, and other workers as well as the materials given in the text. If at first they act the story in pantomime, let them do so. Young children have difficulty in the use of language and can secure more rapid action by means of gestures and pantomime. Such play develops clear mental pictures which soon find expression in words. It is well to give children freedom in dramatic play. Such freedom will not be abused if responsibility is placed upon them and if an atmosphere is secured which promotes concentration. The first plays should be very simple ones consisting of the action in one place. Sometimes it may be the representation of Bobby and Betty talking with their mother; again it may be at the baker’s shop, and again on the way home. Children quickly discover the natural divisions of a play and become interested in playing the whole story and thus finding a way of representing different scenes in an act. The dramatic play from day to day requires nothing in the way of costume; but, if later it seems best to represent a more finished play, the children will enjoy planning and making simple caps, aprons, coats, and dresses of paper or inexpensive material for the various characters. A procession of workers will prove interesting, each child representing one of the characters. Each one should be asked to do something which the worker he represents might do, whether it be the imitation of movements, an action song, or repeating an appropriate jingle. A delightful entertainment easily grows out of the work from day to day.

_Games._ In addition to dramatic plays children should play games. “Drop the Handkerchief” may be played in connection with the postman; “Button, Button, Who Has the Button?” and “The Needle’s Eye” to supplement lessons on the dressmaker and the tailor; “Hunt the Slipper” while the children are studying the shoemaker; “The Muffin Man” and “Jack, Jack, the Bread’s a-Burning” in connection with the baker. “What’s Your Trade?” may be adapted to any one of the occupations and is played as follows:

Children divide into two groups by choosing sides or by any other arrangement. Children of the first group choose some occupation they are to act in pantomime, but do not tell the second group of children, for they are to guess it. When all are ready the two groups approach each other from opposite sides of the room.

FIRST GROUP. Here we come. Here we come.

SECOND GROUP. Where from? Where from?

FIRST GROUP. Milwaukee. Milwaukee. (The name of any place the children may choose may be substituted for “Milwaukee.”)

SECOND GROUP. What is your trade? What is your trade?

FIRST GROUP. Watch and see. Watch and see.

Thereupon the children of the first group imitate the movements of the occupation selected until some one of the second group guesses it. Then the second group chooses an occupation for the first to guess.

The teacher may modify this by letting one child act an occupation for the class to guess. In such a case when he appears the children may repeat:

Here comes an old man from the wood. What can you do, old man?

OLD MAN. Do anything.

CHILDREN. Work away.

The child who has the part of the old man or the old woman, as the case may be, imitates the movements of some occupation and the others guess it.

_Songs._ Occupation songs are dear to young children and should be used in connection with these lessons. Examine the books accessible and make a list of the songs of the shoemaker, baker, tailor, dressmaker, and other workers. At odd moments many songs can thus be found. If it seems best, enlist the coöperation of children and their parents in collecting such songs.

Among the many books containing appropriate songs to be used in this connection are the following:

Elliott, J. W. _Mother Goose Melodies._ Gaynor, Mrs. _Songs of the Child World._ ” ” _Songs and Scissors._ Gomme, Alice B. _Children’s Singing Games._ 2 vols. Hill, Mildred and Patty. _Song Stories for the Kindergarten._ Hofer, Mari Ruef. _Children’s Singing Games; Old and New._ 3 vols. Neidlinger, W. H. _Small Songs for Small Singers._ Poulsson, Emilie. _Holiday Songs and Everyday Songs and Games._ Smith, Eleanor. _Songs for Little Children._ ” ” _The Eleanor Smith Music Course._ Book Two. Tomlins, William. _The Child’s Garden of Song._ Wiggin, Kate Douglas. _Kindergarten Chimes._

If Book Two of the _Eleanor Smith Music Course_ is at hand, teach the children “The Fruit Vender” and “Street Sounds” when studying the banana man, “Perrie, Merrie, Dixi” when reading “Father Tells a Story,” “Shoe and Slipper” when studying the shoemaker, and “The Concert” in connection with the organ-grinder. The children’s song books listed above contain many excellent songs of the occupations.

_Construction._ Let the children use building blocks to represent the baker’s shop with its show case and shelves where he sells his bread and cake and pies. His kitchen, too, is of great interest to children; if suitable arrangements can be made, take the class to visit a baker’s kitchen. After such a visit the baker’s kitchen and oven should be constructed; the children will doubtless find ways of making bread tins and long wooden shovels or paddles for taking bread from the oven.

The project will not completely satisfy unless the baker himself appears on the scene. Whether the toy baker shall be fashioned from a clothes-pin, a piece of cornstalk, corn husks, twigs, cloth, or wood may be left to the children, who doubtless will be pleased to include in the dress the characteristic white coat or apron and a white cap.

The shoemaker, and in fact all the characters included in this book, may be treated in a similar way. If something more permanent than block-building is desired, let the children bring small dry-goods boxes or boxes of cardboard or corrugated paper and fit them up for shops and stores. The furniture for such toy shops can be made of blocks of suitable size glued together, or by use of small cardboard boxes and empty spools. Children are able to find ways and means of making such furniture, but they should not be deprived of the opportunity of seeing good forms made by others. At this period in the child’s life finished workmanship is not the aim. The product is of minor importance in comparison with the activity itself and its place in developing clear mental images.

Let the children mark out a familiar business street in their sand box and indicate the location of the shops and stores, which may be represented by small boxes. Of course, it will not do to have the stores vacant and the streets deserted. Tiny dolls may be made to represent the people, and tiny pushcarts, wheelbarrows, milk wagons, and automobiles for the street and alley. Larger pushcarts and wagons may be made as separate projects from time to time, but in the one under consideration everything must be on a small scale.

The milliner’s shop suggests the making of hats. Whether these be simple hats for a toy milliner’s shop, dolls’ hats of flowers of the season or other available material, or hats for Simple Simon, Colly-Molly-Puff, the Rabbit Woman, or any other character of the book, may be determined by the conditions when the study is made. The making of hats, caps, aprons, and other characteristic garments of the workers to be used in dramatic play provides another form of interesting and profitable work.

_Drawing._ Each lesson presents suitable subjects for children’s drawings. Use these day by day and encourage children to look for pictures in the lines they read and to put them on paper. One of the many interesting projects in connection with the study, and one which may be preserved in a somewhat permanent form, may be termed a group drawing of a street showing the shops, stores, sidewalk, and street, together with the people and vehicles. Such a group drawing may be made in sections and later placed on the wall so as to form one large continuous picture. If preferred, paper-cutting may be used instead of drawing, and the objects pasted on large sheets. Such illustrations have been made by primary classes with excellent results.

_Ethical ideas._ Children readily understand the importance of honesty in weights and measures as well as in making change. They also know that their mothers prefer to buy groceries of a grocer whose store is clean and orderly and whose stock is of excellent quality. They can easily understand that the groceryman must understand his business, know how and what to buy as well as how to keep his stock in good order and sell it in a businesslike way. They will be interested in learning what each of the workers does for the community and what we as members of the community do for each in return for his service. They will learn to respect and honor the efficient and faithful worker and, it may be, even at this early age, get a glimpse of why it is that some do not succeed. Ethical ideas should not be forced upon the children, but can be brought out in their dramatic play and other activities. In such ways teach the children the value of cleanliness, order, intelligence, honesty, promptness, and fidelity, not only to the worker, but to the community as a whole.

KATHARINE E. DOPP