SUN AND SHADOW
Blue-Prints (Leaf, blue-print paper, running water, small oblong of glass)
A package of blue-print paper can be bought at any photographic supply place for from 15 cents up, or can be had in the sheet from an architect's supply store. It must be carefully protected from the light till ready for use.
Take a square of the paper and place upon it a leaf or flower or inconspicuous weed that makes a good shadow on the sidewalk or window sill. Place this in pleasing position upon the paper and put quickly in the bright sunshine, holding it in place with the small pane of glass (common picture glass will do). Leave exposed to the sun for about ten minutes, then pour cold water over it for a moment or so, and the "shadow" will be seen to be permanently "fixed" in light blue against a darker blue background.
An artist acquaintance has a hundred or more such prints of leaves, plants and flowers beautifully mounted in a Japanese blank-book, the paper of which makes an exquisite background. She finds these shadows of the flowers and commonest weeds suggestive in her designing.
Shadow Game (Smooth fence in sunshine; branch with leaves.)
1. Several children sit in row, facing smooth board fence. Another group of children form their opponents. Of these one walks behind seated row in such a way that his profile is visible on fence. Seated children guess opponent from shadow cast.
2. One child casts on wall shadow of leafy branch. Opponents guess name of parent tree.
CHAPTER III
SAVED FROM THE SCRAP BASKET
or
Work with Scissors and Paste
What is known as free-hand cutting has been for some time recognized as of genuine educational value and is a source of great pleasure to the child when once he learns his capacity in this direction. When he tries, by means of paper and scissors, to express an idea, to illustrate some story, or to indicate something that he has seen, his notions of form and proportion become more definite and precise, and he learns to express action with remarkable skill and power. He learns to appreciate beauty of outline as seen in mountains and trees against a clear sky, and to recognize such beauty as there may be in what artists know as the "sky line," when darkness deepens and the mammoth buildings of a city loom up black against the sunset heavens. The definiteness of observation and skill with the hand acquired in this free cutting serves the child in many ways when in the school grades.
Many an otherwise useless piece of paper may, with the help of scissors, give the child hours of pleasure.
But before he is able to use the scissors the child may receive pleasure and benefit from the use of paper alone.