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.