The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1920-10-21

PLAY LESSONS FOR
LITTLE CHILDREN
(By. Marion Florence Lansing, a.. NJ.
When the older children Of the home
and neighborhood 60 back to school
in the autumn, the mother is often
taxed to find occupations which will
fill in the gap for the active two,
three, or four-year-o old who misses
their companionship. This is just the
time to delight his heart and satisfy
his unconscious desires and needs by
starting him on a set Of simple play
lessons. For these the mother needs
no elaborate materials or schoolroom
training. She can find in her own
home and experience both the tools
and the skill for their use.
Every mother lives over with her
children the experience of each human
being in discovering and adapting him
self to the world about him. Let her
pause and take thought Of q few Of
the common facts with which her child
must become familiar. One is an. ap-
probation Of the relative sizes Of
,things. Think how you would sfeel if
You had never consciously entertained
the idea of size and it suddenly
dawned upon you one day that two OBJ
jects which had seemed alike yet
vaguely unlike, differed in that one
was slightly larger than the other.
You would have a new testing rod with
which to try out the world. Give a
child that idea with nest of boxes,
with set Of books graded by sizes,
with blocks, with spools, with tin pans.
Any set Of objects In series will be the
materials for a group Of play lessons
for which the words "large" and
larger" "small" and Smaller" are
the keys.
4. Along with size come length and
height. Following size comes shape,
taught most easily by sorting out all
the blocks Of a kind or all the beads
Of kind from the usual boxes Of
blocks and wooden beads which are to
be found among the playthings Of
most children. They all love to pick
out shapes by touch, finding in a
group Of objects hidden under an
apron in the mothers lap the twin of
an object they hold in their hands,
then, when they have the idea,, doing
the same from piles of their own MAX
ing. They are interested in likenesses
and differences. This interest is, in
deed, at the bottom of most play sug-
gestions for little children. Through
it we start the child on the training of
his sensibilities In discovering diff
ferences and noting them and in per-
forming operations which make note
of them through touch or sight, the
child is developing these powers which
are at the moment awaiting develop
meat.
Other plays with duplicate spools
or blocks introduce the idea Of match
ing things, selecting one and finding
its twin. Then we come to sorting
and here are opportunities for va
riety of plays. Mix from the kitchen
supply closet brown, white. and speck-
led beans; provide three receptacles
into which to sort them. Make play
set from your button box. Childen's
delicate fnger-tips are quickly sus-
ceptible to differences in texture. Go
to your piece bag and cut squares
patchwork size) Of cotton, flannel.
velvet, corduroy, burlap, chamois skin.
leather and silk, to be sorted into
pieces Of each kind, first by touch and
sight, then by touch alone. Color
plays some in a natural sequence, en-
ploying at first only the primary col
ors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue
and violet. .s.s. Hi
The whole secret Of home education
for little children is for the mother to
meet awakening instincts and powers
with play supplies and play i.a s n.
Froebel, must precede the A B C of
words" Nothing the little child is
carrying is beyond his Mothers Exper-
fence. To meet his needs she has only
to get his viewpoint and travel with
hi1n the road of investigation Of the
interesting world about him.