Pea-Pod Boat (Pan of water, peapods)
Give a small child a dish-pan filled with water and a peapod for a boat, with peas for passengers and he will entertain himself for a long time. Let the frequency with which he is allowed this privilege depend upon his care in keeping himself and his surroundings dry, thus leading to neatness and self-control.
Pea Furniture (See [chapter on kindergarten occupations])
Numeral Frame or Abacus (Hair-wire, cardboard stationery box)
Get ten slender pieces of wire about six inches long. Put one pea on the first, two on the second, three on the third, etc., until you reach the last, on which place ten. Take an empty stationery box, and cut away the bottom leaving the four sides intact as a frame. Into this frame insert the ten wires, the one with one pea at the top, then No. 2, 3, etc. The child can then practice counting the different combinations up to ten.
Instead of peas such a series of units could be made by stringing cranberries or rose-haws on a waxed thread.
POTATOES AND SQUASH
Potato Horse (Three potatoes, slender sticks or tooth-picks, raveled string or coarse black thread)
Take large potato for body of horse, a smaller one for the neck, and another for the head. Join them with sticks broken to convenient length. Four other sticks make the legs, two little ones the ears and the string or thread the flowing tail. The tail can be attached to a tack or pin and inserted.
Squash or Sweet Potato Animals (Crooked-neck squash or sweet potato for each animal, slender sticks)