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"Lay off o' that, Buddy, it b'longs to Your Truly," So spoke a seven-year-old school boy who comes of an excellent family where English is spoken in the home. And I wondered where he had acquired the slang.

But where had he not heard it, for it is always in the air? The language of the news boy on the corner and the driver on the garbage truck is scarcely more adulterated with such words than is that of the newspaper and the general conversation one hears over back fences, in the corner grocery or the department store. It is not confined to any class.

Now I had heard the subject preached upon for a quarter of a century and I could not see that such was improving the situation materially. But five years work with the children of a certain community have shown me that a few things can be accomplished through a carefully planned exercise to place really speakable words in place of the unspeakable ones. The plan I devised and which has since been modified in certain ways is this: With first and second grade children I usually begin with a blackboard poster of a large tool box. There are simple tools placed about it in such a manner that they are easily distinguishable. The impossibility of doing good carpenter work without tools is discussed and the line of thought leads to the fact that words are the tools of communication. Since the carpenter cannot use a screw driver for a wood chisel, nor a draw knife for a plane with success, neither can men and women or boys and girls say just what they think or wish to say without the words that correctly express the opinions they hold.

Since action is to children a most enjoyable thing, whether it be physical or mental, I usually give verbs first but I do not in any case state that they are verbs. A child loves to use a word that sounds important and to use it correctly. Nor is he apt to be self-important with it.

Because of childhood's natural curiosity I very often give the word "explain" first. I use it correctly in a sentence and then we think of things we might ask our parents to explain to us and have that project for home work, to have something explained. I usually follow up the very next day with a request that one or more children explained to the class just what he had a parent explain to him.

I follow this with such words as "permit" which I usually give to overcome the usual propensity to use incorrectly the word "let." Others given include “recognize," "construct," "respect," "assist," "repeat," "enjoy," "commend," "appreciate" and "expect." Others I select as I go along when I find the need for them.

Nouns or names of things I do not give the attention that I do the verbs unless something is being wrongly named. Childish curiosity usually leads to their knowing them rapidly enough. After a goodly supply of verbs have been added to the list some adjectives and adverbs may well be undertaken. If a class is inclined to say "by myself" I give the word “alone.”

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If they say "awful" and "real" for "very" as is not altogether uncommon I attempt to correct those things.

Patient work along this line before children are more than six to eight years old is conductive to the building of excellent vocabularies and it is always done in a better spirit and with much less self-consciousness than when taken up later in the grade school years. Habits of speech that need attention are much easier to correct in the lower grades than later and the use of the newly acquired words becomes more easily a part of the general habits of speech.

ROSEMARY'S WISH

By Leslie Grant Scott

Rosemary came in from school with pink cheeks and a heart beating with excitement. On the way home she had seen the most wonderful thing-a doll that walked like a real baby.

She had seen it between two little girls. They each held one of its hands and it took little steps and turned its head.

Rosemary thought that she would give anything in the world to have a doll like that. She ran to tell Mother about it but Mother held her finger to her lips and said "Sh" because she was putting baby brother to sleep.

Rosemary loved baby brother. He was much the nicest baby she had ever seen but, sometimes, it seemed to her that he took up a great deal of Mother's time.

That day there was chicken for dinner. Rosemary was just going to speak about the walking doll when Mother said:

"Who wants the wish-bone today?" Rosemary clapped her hands.

"Oh, I do," she said. "Will you pull it with me, Mother?"

"Yes," said Mother, "and I know what I shall wish but I mustn't tell anyone or it won't come true.” "Can't you tell anyone at all?" asked Rosemary. "No one at all," replied Mother.

Of course Rosemary wished for a walking doll and she got the longer piece of the wish-bone which meant that she would get her wish.

Rosemary found it very hard to keep from telling what she had wished, especially to Mother, but she wanted the doll so much that she resolved to tell no one.

Every day Rosemary expected the walking doll but each day passed without bringing it. Sometimes Rosemary got discouraged but then she remembered the wish-bone. She would surely get her wish.

It became harder and harder for Rosemary not to talk about it to Mother or to her little friends. She was even tempted to whisper it in baby brother's pink ear. Finally she decided to mention it in her prayers. God knewn everything, anyway, SO it couldn't do any harm.

One night after Mother had tucked her in and kissed her, she got out of bed and knelt down. She told God how much she wanted the walking doll

and asked Him to help her get it. She felt very happy after that and went to sleep.

The next morning when Rosemary went down to breakfast she found that her Aunt Helen had arrived from New York.

"I brought you something from the city, Rosemary," she said. "Can you guess what it is?"

"A walking doll!" cried Rosemary.

"Why, how did you know?" asked Aunt Helen. And then Rosemary told her all about the wish-bone.

DEPENDABILITY A PRICELESS TRAIT

By Edith Lochridge Reid

At first glance it may seem that dependability is a pretty big word to fit into the lives of tiny individuals. But an hour spent in observation on any playground will reveal this characteristic and the lack of it also. A group of wee boys and girls were enjoying recreation in the park. "You push me in the swing and then I'll give you a nice long one," pleaded Jimmy. So Elinor pushed Jimmy up in the swing many times until her little face was flushed and her arms tired. "Will you swing me as long as I'm swinging you?" she asked several times, and Jimmy always answered, "O, sure, lots longer."

But Jimmy didn't swing Elinor. He saw some of the boys headed for the slides and followed, feeling no compunctions whatever, although he left Elinor in tears.

Right across from these two children sat a small girl watching her baby brother two years younger. Repeatedly her playmates came along and asked her to wade with them in the pond, but this faithful little miss shook her head decidedly, explaining that she couldn't move from that seat until big sister came back from swimming in the tank.

So within ten yards of each other these children demonstrated both a lack of dependability and a true application of it in child life. And since they were too young to have spent much of their time under any influence except mother's, we must draw our own inference as to where the responsibility lay.

When a child is sent to do an errand a mother should hold him to his task and make him understand that she depends on him for the execution of that duty and nothing must be allowed to interfere. If Billy is given a nickel to go one block to the store for a lemon, he should receive from mother the idea that this is an important mission. And it is.

But if he stops and rides on a playmate's new kiddie car and loses the nickel-what then? Well, it would be much easier to give him another nickel and send him off again, especially if one is in a hurry to make lemon pudding. But there is an element involved much more important than five cents' worth of merchandise, for perhaps when Billy is twenty-one he may be sent by his employer to deposit a thousand dollars in a bank. Where is he going to learn dependability for the big task if not from the first small duties assigned him?

So even though Billy's allowance may be only ten cents a week-or five, he should pay back the loss from his personal funds. If he is old enough to do

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the errand he is old enough to do it in a dependable

way.

We cannot erect for our children a far-away, grownup ideal of dependability and expect them to reach it at maturity by some stroke of magic. The vital qualities of character are developed from day to day amid the activities of their childhood and youth.

All mothers agree that it isn't easy to stop each day and translate dependability into terms that the little tots can understand, but in justice to the future it is fully worth while.

FLOWERS OF WINTER
By Rufus M. Reed

The winter wind was howling
Through the old forest bleak and cold;
The barren boughs were waving,
While mist and snow fell on the wold,
The wet, wet snow kept falling

All the evening and the night,
"Til the dark clouds, vanishing,
Were all gone, ere morning light.
Then colder it kept growing,
"Til I arose out of my bed,
And the red sun was peeping

O'er the hill-top's distant head.
When the hill-slope I stood viewing,

Lo, I beheld a wondrous sight!
While all creatures had been sleeping
All the trees had bloomed pure white!

SLEEPYTIME PLAYMATE
By Satella Jaques Penman, San Diego, California
Each night at my window I see you, my star;
You're winking a twinkle at me

As if you are sleepy; I just b'lieve you are,
As sleepy as you can be.

The angels are bringing that cloudlet I know,
That soft little blanket, all white;

It's near yon-Now-Peek-a-boo,-Under you go!
You dear little twinkler, Goodnight!

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1. BABY CARRIAGE

2. BABY CARRIAGE

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to M The r

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THE KINDERGARTEN

-PRIMARY————————

MAGAZINE

Published bi-monthly during the school year as follows: September 1st,
November 1st, January 1st, March 1st, and May 1st, at Manistee Michigan, U.
S. A. Subscription price 75c per annum, postpaid in U. S., Hawaiin Islands,
Phillipines, Guam, Porto Rico, Samoa, Shanghai, Cannal Zone, Cuba, Mexico,
For Canada add 10c, and for all other countries 15c, for postage.
THE J. H. SHULTS CO. Publishers.

Entered at the P. O., Manistee, Mich., as Second Class Mail Matter.
THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR

March-April, 1924.

CHILD TRAINING

By Dr. Jenny B. Mer: il!

New York City

CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME

Jenny B. Merrill, Pd. D.

We do not know that you are subscribers to our Kindergarten-Primary Magazine, but we do hope that it reaches many of your homes for we believe it is most desirable for parents and teachers to work together.

Yes, teachers need help from parents and many parents testify gladly of the help they have received from teachers.

The fact is that parents and teachers know children from different standpoints, see them at different angles and under widely different conditions.

This sometimes makes them critical of each other but getting together, cooperating, tends to solve difficulties on both sides.

If teachers do not take the initiative in organizing parents' clubs, then let parents start themselves and invite teachers to address them. When teachers invite parents to the schoolhouse, many gladly respond and soon find topics of interest to discuss. They find teachers are seconding their health plans and sometimes they find teachers able to advise, or if not ready to do so themselves, the trained nurse, and the able physician are willing to give occasional talks at parents' gatherings.

School life and school plans have not stood still in these days of automobiles, air-planes, radio, etc. The thoughtful parent no longer says, "Well, we didn't do that way when I went to school." Of course not, for there are better school text books, better pictures and often though not always, better seating, better lighting, better games. There is more study of nature and nature's ways, more drawing and music, more dramatization. These are not non-essentials but life giving methods that aim to bring beauty as well as duty into school life. Stand by them, good parents, and call for more.

VOL. XXXVI-No.4

Just now at the opening of the spring months, encourage plans for beautifying the school grounds. Do not think time is being wasted when you hear that a few hours have been spent in the woods hunting for the first spring flowers, or to observe more closely under intelligent supervision the spring position of the sun, comparing it with winter days. Such observations will make way for later school book readings on the cause of the seasons.

Observing the moon and the stars, the changes which come at night when schools are not in session, we urge parents to consider with their children. Can you find the North star and can John and Mary? Do they know the beautiful constellation of Orion? Do you watch with them for those brilliant stars, Venus and Jupiter? It is worth while to form the habit while young or old of "looking up?"

"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge."

That wonderful poet of long ago goes on to tell us tho the heavens are silent, still they speak.

Train your children to listen to the silent voices of nature.

Be assured, good parent, good teacher that this observation of silent nature, has something to do with the latter half of that beautiful old poem in which we go on to read "The law of the Lord is perfect, Restoring the soul."

"The great need of the present time is for more character. To develope the character we must start in the home, school and church when the children are young." A pamphlet entitled: "Children weeds" says "Thirteen millions out of twenty-five millions under twelve years of age are receiving no religious education whatever."-Roger W. Babson.

"The church kindergarten has the great advantage of being a typical piece of exceedingly valuable community service and also being a medium through which the church can come into contact with the parents."-Dr. Emerson Olds Houser of Chicago.

By JENNY B. MERRILL, Pd. D.

Former Supervisor of Public School Kindergartens, New York City: Special Lecturer on Educational Topics

KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES DURING THE

MONTH OF MARCH

Jenny B. Merrill, Pd. D.

In planning our spring program, it is always well to first ask when Easter comes. This holiday is so generally observed in one way or another that it makes a goal or climax to our spring program even when it cannot be kept as a religious holiday.

Easter means "a rising" and so always breathes of the wonderfully awakening of nature after the long winter nap.

In 1924, Easter comes late, April 20th, unusually late, but this gives us plenty of time for preparation.

Spring as a season really opens March 21st, so that unless kindergartners are located in the sunny South, winter snow and winter games may continue in the March program. The great snow blizzard of 1888 came in March.

Children are very responsive to the weather day by day, but do not at the kindergarten age see far enough ahead to take in a month at a time, let alone a season. So I would advise keeping in touch with mother nature as she presents herself in your own locality, saying nothing about Spring until it really appears. Work up to the last of April more gradually than when Easter arrives early.

By common consent led by nature, kindergartners make much of the wind stories and games this month. The freaks and activities of Mr. Wind are quite in accord with childish frolicsomeness. Do not begin by telling the children that March is a windy month. No, no, wait till the children come in some morning with their own accounts of how the wind blew Eddie's hat across the street, or how they heard the windows rattle or whistle thru the key-hole last night.

Then look out of the kindergarten window with your little flock around you and watch for other signs "The wind is blowing our flag.”

"The clouds are flying." Let open the window and see what the wind will do." "Ha, there flies a piece of paper right out of the window." "Can we make a play about the wind?" Wait for responses. Accept almost any suggestion however crude. The play will grow.

"I can run like the wind," says active Harry." "I can whistle." "I can blow hard with my mouth." "I can wave my hand like the flag waves when the wind blows."

Here is a feather. Who can blow it up high? Who can blow it higher? Now let us all take a big breath and then blow it out gently like a little breeze. Ready-all together. 1, 2, 3, 4 5. Hold it. Now out slowly, slowly. Will you all watch for the wind and tell me more about it tomorrow?

These few suggestive questions and responses are

given not to be closely followed but rather to give the spirit of a conversation about wind.

Another day, show a windy picture and let the children talk about it freely. Then see if their responses can be developed into action in any simple

way.

Perhaps you can draw a windy scene on the blackboard another day and if not, perhaps the children can. They are often quite ready to attempt the impossible. They are not self-conscious about their crudities, as we are apt to be. This picture study may lead to a drawing period when all try to show what Mr. Wind can do.

If your kindergarten is near the water where children perhaps have seen sail boats, of course, they will tell you that the wind blows the boats. Who has a little sail boat? Will you bring it tomorrow?

When it arrives, ask, who can show us how the wind makes the boat move on the water? "Can we get a basin of water?" Of course, we can. Then take turns blowing on the sail. Some children have never had a sail boat. This little play experience brings a great thought with it tho the little ones do not know it.

They are following nature and nature's laws in their play. They little know what the wind has done for man, but this play is an introduction to science. Sometimes it is well to remind ourselves of the five values of life which man has slowly been developing and to trace their development in our simple kindergarten world.

These five values have been frequently given as follows:

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Let us ask how our talks and songs, our plays and work in the kindergarten during March may lead the child along these lines. It gives us a background to connect these early experiences with the big things of life altho with the child we are only playing.

Make for yourself a list of new words relating to the wind that you will use frequently during the month working them into the child's vocabulary. Perhaps all the words may not be new to all the children. You may find them in stories and in songs. Thus we develop language and literature.

Our well chosen pictures and the children's draw ings are leading to art.

Then in some of our talks we can be a little mysterious as in the story I gave last year in the March number of the Magazine, or again, in a question "where does the wind come from? Who sends it?"

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And so we very surely arouse the religious instinct which has grown in maL in many strange ways thru the feelings of awe and wonder.

HAND WORK

I suppose that it is in our busy occupations that we begin to touch social institutions. Industry has led to these.

What will the children make this month? If your talks and their experiences with the wind and the pictures and objects do not suggest little projects, I shall be surprised. However, you will have plenty in mind and be ready to introduce them as we have already suggested drawing. Before the child draws, it may be well to sk, "What will you show us in your picture of the wind?" To stop a moment to think, to plan before beginning is desirable sometimes.

After the little sail boat has appeared, making boats in several ways will be a very natural result. How to make a sail will be a problem. Problems are a part of projects.

What shall we use? Paper, thin pieces of wood, stiff boxes, a grocer's butter plaque, clay and shells of nuts, particularly of the English walnut. In the last you can easily hoist a tiny paper sail on a pin and it sails well.

It is your part to have these materials at hand, so think ahead and make a collection from which the little ones may choose.

I need not remind you of kites and kite flying, of pin-wheels, of clothes-on-the-line for the wind to dry for us, of weather-vanes that turn with the wind, north, east, south, west.

For a more extended project a wind scene may be built in the sand-box.

There may be a washing-day when dusters or dolly's clothes may be washed, a clothes line put up and the clothes hung up to dry.

Children can cut garments of paper but to make a pin-wheel requires direction.

I think it an object better for the older children, but the older ones after making one, may help the little ones or make one for them.

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Paper and scissors. We have those here. choose the color you want. Now watch while I cut the paper. Watch again. Who can do it? If any try and fail, give another paper and select a successful child to help the other. Proceed step by step and in this case give help for the pin-wheel is a real toy and will give much joy.

Go out-of-doors and let the children enjoy them together before taking them home.

THE SUN AND SHADOWS

Toward the end of March, the sun begins to assert himself, rising higher and higher and the days grow

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longer. Here is another nature lesson of great importance. If children for several years are led to observe these changes in the length of days, they are being prepared for science in Geography in the years to come. It is surprising how many boys and girls when they reach mathematical geography, have very little accurate observations of the position of the sun at different seasons to use as a basis for these advanced lessons. In the kindergarten, it is not too soon to begin to watch the sun, to note shadows, to catch the rainbow colors and to play with them till they are well known play fellows.

Of course, every kindergarten should be furnished with a glass prism, but if not, the sun will yield the pretty colors of the spectrum on a basin of soap-suds or in soap bubbles or by using a mirror.

Noticing the short and long shadows and their different positions is always pleasing to children and again brings in a little feeling of mystery. How do shadows come? Where do they go? Can we catch them? What are they? (Talk of this simple shadow play and of shadow pictures on the wall at a Mother's Meeting this month.)

RISING SAP

In some localities where maple trees abound, kindergartners may well tell the story of maple-sugar making.

The camp may be built in the sand-tray, the buckets made and hung on the tiny trees which may be twigs. There should be a boiling place and if possible a real boiling and a maple-sugar party.

BUDDING TWIGS

Twigs of lilac bushes or of horse-chestnut trees, of forsythia, etc., should be kept in the kindergarten room for observation and again to arouse wonder from the early days of March. What a wonderful month we have before us with thirty one days, no special holidays and all this time to grow, and grow, and grow!

DAY'S ORDER

1. Friendly greetings as children arrive. Ask what
they have noticed on their way. Listen and train
them in hanging up wraps, etc.

2. Free play with toys, slide, swing, building blocks,
dolls, doll-houses, etc. Kindergartner noting behavior,
etc.

3. Quieting music which children learn to understand
as a signal to gather in a circle after putting away
toys, arrange chairs, stand in silence as music ceases.
4. Hymn-prayer-song-conversation-story.
Dramatization of story or rhythms.

5.

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