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 Educative seat work, with an appendix con 
 
 3 1924 013 381 714 
 
BULLETIN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE NORMAL SCHOOL >r WOMEN 
 
 FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA 
 
 Vol. V, No. 2 January, 1919 
 
 EDUCATIVE SEAT WORK 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 Entpred as second-class matter November 12, 1914, at the post office at Farmville, 
 Virginia, under the Act of August 24, 1912. 
 
^tm QJ^ltege of Agritulture 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013381714 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 FANNIE W. DUNN 
 
 Super'visor of Rural Schools, State Normal School, 
 Farm'ville, Virginia 
 
 Revised 1919, bv 
 
 Fannie W. Dunn, Department of Rural Education, 
 Teaches' College, Nenv York 
 
 Bertha Wells, Supervisor of Primary Industrial Work, 
 State Normal School, Farm'ville, Virginia 
 
 PRICE 35 CENTS 
 
 SOLD AT THE BOOK ROOM 
 
 STATE NORMAL SCHOOL FOR WOMEN 
 
 FARMVILLE, VA. 
 
 published hy 
 
 The State Normal School For Women 
 
 Farmville, Virginia 
 
Copyright 1912 
 By Fannie W. Dunn 
 
 Copyright 1919 
 By Fannie W. Dunn 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Introduction : page 
 
 The Need for Educative Seat Work 5 
 
 Why Seat Work Should be Educative •••-.•• 6 
 
 When is Seat Work Educative? 7 
 
 Eelation of Seat Work and Class Work 8 
 
 Profitable Uses of the Bevpteen-Becitation Period 8 
 
 Does the Between-Eeeitation Occupation Mean Seat Work?.. 9 
 
 Checking Assigned Occupations 10 
 
 Graduation and Progress in Seat Work ] 1 
 
 II. Projects Involving Much Constructive Activity: 
 
 A Doll House 11 
 
 Buying Furniture for the Doll House 13 
 
 Playing Store 13 
 
 Homes in Other Lands or Other Days 13 
 
 Sand Table Projects 13 
 
 Posters or Charts 14 
 
 Scrap Books 15 
 
 Booklets 15 
 
 III. Smaller Projects — Handwork and Drawing 21 
 
 Wall Paper, Linoleum, Tiling 21 
 
 Weaving 24 
 
 Paper Cutting 25 
 
 Free Hand Drawing 32 
 
 Paper Folding 32 
 
 Clay Modeling 33 
 
 Wood Block Printing 34 
 
 Basketry 35 
 
 Spool Knitting 36 
 
 Sewing 37 
 
 Bead Necklaces 38 
 
 Jointed Toys 38 
 
 Miscellaneous 38 
 
 IV. Beading as Seat Occupation 41 
 
 Seat Occupation with Books for Very Little Children 41 
 
 A Suggestive List of Books for Beginners 42 
 
 Other Books for First, Second, and Third Grades 43 
 
 Using Books in Primary Grades 44 
 
 Drill Exercises in Beading for Seat Work 45 
 
 A Phonic Series 48 
 
PAGE 
 
 V. Writing as Seat Work 51 
 
 Blackboard Work 52 
 
 Writing at the Desk or Table 54 
 
 VI. Number as Seat Work 57 
 
 Exercises Not Involving Figures 57 
 
 Exercises Involving Figures 62 
 
 A Number Series 66 
 
 Exercises Involving Use of the Ruler 67 
 
 VII. Plat as Betvteen-Eeoitation Occupation 70 
 
 Out of Doors Play 71 
 
 Indoor Games and Play Equipment 72 
 
 Possible Objections Considered 74 
 
 VIII. Suggestions for Using the Various Types of Seat Work: 
 
 Desirability of Eelation Between the Seat Work and Special 
 
 Interests 75 
 
 Interests Likely to be Conspicuous Each Month, with Sug- 
 gestions 76 
 
 Technique of Handling Seat Work 79 
 
EDUCATIVE SEAT WORK 
 
 Introduction 
 The Need For Educative Seat Work 
 
 Every country school teacher knows that one of the most dif- 
 ficult problems she has to solve is that of providing her younger 
 pupils with occupation during the period when they are not 
 reciting, and that the younger the pupil the greater the dif^ 
 ficulty. As a result of this, teachers' journals and school supply 
 houses usually find a ready sale for busy work materials and 
 devices. Cardboard stencils, through which pictures may be 
 traced, sewing cards, with holes already punched for the needle 
 and outlining thread, patterns of animals to be outlined and 
 cut, out, word, letter, and number cards, are examples of com- 
 monly used materials. By means of them the children may be 
 kept busy, at least part of the time, with consequent decrease in 
 restlessness and disorder. 
 
 Many country teachers know, too, that the term "busy work" 
 has fallen inta reproach, for the reason that the various occupa- 
 tions which fall under this head may keep the children busy, but 
 serve no other purpose, and are often actually harmful. Thought- 
 ful teachers are coming to realize that perhaps the most neglected 
 opportunity in our schools to-day, and especially in our rural 
 schools, lies in the seat or study period. They know that a child 
 is not being educated in those minutes only during which the 
 teacher and class are working together, the so-called recitation 
 period, but that his education is proceeding, for good or ill, in 
 his every -waking moment; that through everything he does, or 
 does not, he is forming habits, developing attitudes, becoming set 
 in some mould or other. They know that the child's character 
 is either better or worse for the way he spends each hour of his 
 school day. 
 
6 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Why Seat Work Should Be Educative. 
 
 Society to-day needs men and women who are resourceful, 
 energetic, able to take a piece of work, decide how it shall be 
 done, and do it with the least possible expenditure of time and 
 energy. Consider the effect of the average seat period with re- 
 gard to these qualities of resourcefulness, energy, and dispatch. 
 Resourcefulness, if exercised at all, is likely to be in spite of, 
 rather than because of the teacher. How much resourcefulness 
 is called for by the copying, tracing, putting a needle into a 
 hole already prepared for it, and similar work, that constitute 
 so large a part of the occupation that is provided? The value 
 that these occupations have in the development of muscular 
 control is realized in very early years, usually in the kinder- 
 garten age or sooner. A fifth grade child who uses a pattern to 
 trace and cut out the parts of a cat, to be put together by means 
 of paper fasteners, is being arrested oh a baby plane of develop- 
 ment, but such work has been used for fifth grade children. 
 
 Dispatch, the ability to get a task done in minimum time, is 
 a priceless possession in these days when there are so many new 
 fields to be developed, so much to be done, so many good books 
 to be read. But far from dev'eloping dispatch, our seat work or 
 study period actually militates against it. "I have read my 
 lesson," says Susie. "You read too fast," replies her teacher. 
 "Read it over again." "I have copied that line twenty times." 
 "Turn your paper over and copy it twenty times on the other 
 side." Who would be brisk, when such penalties follow? And 
 why be brisk, anyhow, when there is nothing worth while waiting 
 to be done when one task is accomplished? 
 
 Energy, vim, doing with one s might, is likely to characterize 
 work that seems worth while. But when a task is worthless, has- 
 no reason for being except an arbitrary command of the teacher, 
 listlessness, rather than energy, is the attitude to be expected.' 
 And, after the first novelty of the exercise has worn off, what is 
 there worth while or interesting in the ordinary busy work? 
 A child was ruling a paper into squares, and coloring the 
 alternate squares in contrasting colors. "What are you mak 
 
Educative Seat Work 7 
 
 ing?" asked the visitor. "I don't know," was the reply. A 
 supervisor, in a particularly ugly school, was talking with the 
 children as to what they could do to beautify it, A border with 
 a cut-out design was suggested for the space above the front 
 blackboard, where the plastering was badly broken. The children 
 grew eager in planning it. Then the teacher interrupted. ' ' We 
 
 are making a border for just that purpose. Miss S ", she said, 
 
 ' ' but the children didn 't know what it was for. ' ' 
 
 The country teacher's problem, then, is not merely to furnish 
 work that will keep her pupils busy. It is to furnish work that 
 will keep them profitably busy, that will continue to educate 
 them along right lines in the between-reeitation, as well as in 
 the recitation period. The importance of a solution of this 
 problem is evident when one considers that in the average one- 
 room school the younger pupils receive from half an hour to an 
 hour and a half of teaching a day, and that approximately five 
 sixths of their time is spent in independent occupation or else 
 in idleness. If the country child is to be educated six sixths, 
 instead of one sixth of his time, it is essential that his occupa- 
 tion shall be beneficial, shall be progressive, shall be educative. 
 
 When Is Seat Work Educative! 
 
 This is an age of standards, of measurement. Can we apply 
 any standard to our seat work, measure its value in any way? 
 The four factors suggested by McMurry for testing the general 
 effectiveness of teaching may be applied here. They are motive, 
 weighing of values, organization, and pupil initiative. 
 
 Is the purpose of the work evident to the pupils? Is it a 
 purpose whose worth they see ? Is the project their own, original 
 or adopted ? Through it are purposes for further work aroused ? 
 Does it provide for growth in motive ? 
 
 Is it a piece of work which a person of good judgment would 
 consider worth the time and energy spent upon it? Are the 
 children constantly distinguishing between relative values, re- 
 jecting or slighting the unimportant, stressing that which is of 
 
8 Educative Seat Work 
 
 most worth? Is the work near enough to the vital interests of 
 the pupil to afford him any basis for judgment of values? 
 
 Is there relation between one piece of seat work and anything 
 else past, present, or to come ? Has it a central idea or aim in 
 relation to which the whole is organized? I^' there orderly 
 sequence and progress and final completeness? ■ • 
 
 Finally, are the children thinking and planniug for them- 
 selves, devising original ways of carrying out the project, taking 
 the initiatiye ? Are they deciding upon projects they wish to 
 undertake as soon as there is time ? Are they developing the 
 capacity for independent work ? 
 
 If all these questions can be affirmatively answered, there is 
 little doubt that the occupation is educative, probably in high 
 degree, for through it are being formed habits and attitudes 
 of highest value. 
 
 Relation of Seat Work and Class Work. 
 
 As matter stands now, seat work, if related at all, is contribu- 
 tory to class werk. It may be preparation for, it may be applica- 
 tion of, the lesson taught or heard in the recitation period, but 
 it is the satellite, the recitation the planet. It is possible, how- 
 ever, that the true relation is just opposite to this, that the 
 between-recitation time, when the children work independently, 
 is the main value, to which the class period should contribute, 
 serving as a time when the seat work may be initiated, planned, 
 or checked up as a step to further independent work along the 
 same line. 
 
 Perhaps neither is more important, but each is essential, the 
 one being the time when the child works alone or with a small 
 group learning from first-hand experience or from books, the 
 other that in which the whole group comes together to share and 
 exchange ideas and suggestions and to call upon the other source 
 of school knowledge, the teacher. 
 
 ProfitaMe Uses of the Between-Becitation Period. 
 The National Council of Primary Education at its Third An- 
 
Educative Seat Work 9 
 
 nual Meeting, February, 1918, considered the following ques- 
 tions with regard to the Between-Reeitation period : 
 To what extent-— 
 
 1. Shall its occupations be definitely outlined by the teacher? 
 
 2. Shall it allow opportunity for projects initiated by the 
 
 pupil? . i.i ■ . 
 
 3. Shall.it be filled with applications of the lesson just taught? 
 
 4. Shall it be seat work or shall it allow projects which involve 
 
 moving about the room? 
 
 What ideal shall dominate the work of the period? 
 
 1. Is it necessary only that the pupils may be profitably occu- 
 pied while the teacher gives attention to other groups ; or, 
 
 2. Is a period of free activity of essential value in the child's 
 development ? 
 
 The report of this discussion may be had from the Bureau of 
 Education, Washington, D. C, being Bulletin 1918, No. 26. 
 
 Profitable uses of seat time here indicated are : 
 
 1. Opportunity for free activity to the end of learning to use 
 
 freedom wisely. 
 
 2. Applications of the lesson just taught. 
 
 To these may be added : 
 
 3. Individual or small group preparation necessary for par- 
 
 ticipation in some large group activity when the whole 
 class comes together. 
 
 4. Drill or practice to make some skill automatic or to fix some 
 
 knowledge firmly. 
 
 Does Between-Reeitation Occupation Mean Seat Work? 
 
 Two other questions raised by the National Council are sug- 
 gestive : 
 
 1. What propotion of a child's day is spent sitting quietly 
 
 in the seat ? 
 
 2. Is the time devoted to physical activity sufScient to insure 
 
 proper muscular development? 
 
10 Educative Seat Work 
 
 The suggestion is that it is at least questionable whether all 
 the time betweeij recitations should be passed in the seat. Six- 
 year-old children, we are told, should be on their feet from one- 
 half to two thirds of their time. Certainly not all, nor even the 
 greater part of the. time should be spent in formal lesson work. 
 Large opportunity and encouragement should be given for free 
 play within the limits which th6 necessities of other pupils in the 
 way of quiet and order make imperative. This is partly because 
 of the educational value of free play, and partly because the 
 limited capacities of little children would make it impossible 
 to require of them tasks which would occupy the four or five 
 hours of time when they are not working directly with the 
 teacher. 
 
 Checking Assigned Occupations 
 
 But from the beginning there should be some definite require- 
 ment, to which the pupil should be held. Though usually we 
 may hope that the pleasurableness of a wisely-selected occupation 
 will be sufficient to assure the child's concentration and con- 
 tinued application until it is completed, yet now and then will 
 surely come times when the compulsion either of the teacher or 
 of the child's own pride of workmanship must force its comple- 
 tion. That external compulsion may be but seldom needed, we 
 must limit the tasks to fit the small powers that are to perform 
 them. If such adjustment of requirement to ability is made 
 that with a reasonable degree of effort the child may each day 
 realize the joy of a duty well done, the sense of satisfaction that 
 accompanies a responsibility well met, something of permanent 
 value has been accomplished. 
 
 Every piece of required work should be inspected, usually 
 by the teacher, that carelessness or indolence may be checked in 
 the developing, and that the satisfaction of another's approval 
 may encourage diligence. If such inspection reveals lesser ca- 
 pacity in certain pupils and greater in others, the assignment in 
 each case should be adapted to fit the individual ability. 
 
Educative Seat Work 11 
 
 Gradation and Progress in Seat Work. 
 Would you teach the same reading lesson on Friday as on 
 Monday? Would you cover the same ground in arithmetic in 
 December as in September ? Would you be satisfied to have your 
 pupils mark time in any subject?' How about seat work? Does 
 that too progress? Or is the same procedure, the same type of 
 exercise, perhaps even the same material employed in tlie same 
 way, used over and over again? A case in point is the very 
 common practice of using "drawing'-' exercises, which consist 
 of tracing pictures by means of carbon paper or stencil designs 
 furnished by obliging school magazines. Children like to do it? 
 Yes, they do, and materials for this use should be available for 
 their selection in free periods if they so desire, as a form of 
 amusement or recreation. But just how much advance is the 
 child making who traces Red Riding Hood to-day and a flock 
 of pigeons to-morrow? All- of us like to do things we do 
 easily and well, but there is little growth if we do nothing else. 
 Even a first grade child has drawing possibilities infinitely 
 beyond this. 
 
 II 
 
 Ppojects Involving Much Constructive Activity 
 A Boll House 
 
 The simplest form of this is the orange crate, or two of them, 
 providing for a house of two or four rooms, a small section of 
 the bed room partitioned off forming the bath room. In a more 
 ambitious project, boxes of various sizes and shapes are put 
 together in the desired arrangement of rooms, and the whole may 
 be roofed, shingled, and weather-boarded with strips of stiff 
 paper. "Tiling" may be woven of paper strips. "Oilcloth" 
 or "linoleum" may be ruled in squares, oblongs, or diamonds, 
 and colored; rugs made of braided strips or woven of rag or 
 yarn. Sheets and curtains may be hemmed, the latter decorated 
 with a simple stencil; quilts pieced or comforts wadded and 
 quilted; mattresses made and stuffed with hair, wool, feathers, 
 
12 Educative Seat Work 
 
 or cotton. Wall paper or wall paper borders designed and made; 
 furniture constructed of cardboard, folded paper, or wood; a 
 hammock woven of cord; bathroom fittings modeled of clay or 
 plasticine; tiny towels made of fringed paper or cloth with a 
 simple border design; a broom, a clock, electric lights or lamps 
 with decorative shades ; perhaps some tiny candles "made by the 
 old-time process of "dipping" and set in candlesticks of clay 
 or tin-foil; pictures cut out, colored, and simply framed — these 
 are some of the projects that will suggest themselves to the 
 resourceful teacher or pupils. 
 
 The major part of the construction work should be done in 
 the between-recitation period. A few lessons will be needed in 
 the beginning to show the children how to cut and fold paper 
 furniture, or to assemble the already prepared wooden blocks 
 and strips and fasten them with small nails. The children should 
 come to depend increasingly on their own ingenuity, through the 
 stages first of the teacher's model and a diagram showing 
 where creases should be made and cut, later the model alone, and 
 finally no model, but independent designing and execution. 
 
 The large part of the class period should be given to planning 
 what should be in our house, on the basis of what should be in 
 any house that is good to live in. What furniture would you 
 have in the bedroom? On what side of the house shall we put 
 the bedroom? Number of windows, curtains, floor coverings, 
 bedding, wall paper, each in turn should be discussed from the 
 standpoint of what is appropriate, beautiful, healthful; and 
 kitchen, living room, dining room, and bathroom should all be 
 similarly considered. Hygiene lessons, art, reading, language, 
 number, all may grow out of this project. 
 
 All sorts of materials are grist to the housebuilder 's mill- 
 cardboard boxes, spools of all shapes and sizes, the doll furniture 
 for cutting and folding often found in women's magazines, bits 
 of cloth for weaving, for patching, for cushion covers, curtains, 
 runners, etc., wood scraps from newly building houses or the 
 carpenter's shop, tin-foil, wall paper samples, buttons for drawer 
 knobs, are examples. Lead the children to provide such material 
 as often as possible, and to be on the lookout for means of meet- 
 
Educative Seat Work 13 
 
 ing their needs as they arise. Supplement their provision enough 
 to be suggestive and stimulating, but not enough to develop de- 
 pendence. 
 
 Buying Furniture for the Doll House. 
 The products of the whole class in the way of furniture, floor 
 and wall covering, etc., may be used to stock a toy furniture 
 store, prices placed upon each article, and the children may pur- 
 chase with toy money those articles needed for the school room 
 doll house, those not so selected being taken home by their little 
 makers for their own play or for gifts. 
 
 Playing Store. 
 
 Other types of stores may be constructed. For a grocery, for 
 example, empty boxes and cans may represent various brands 
 of canned goods, sand be used for sugar and salt, large pebbles 
 for eggs, etc., or real eggs, potatoes and fruit, brought for the 
 school hot lunch, or in some cases, home-made candies or cookies 
 may be sold. Keal weights and measures, and real prices should 
 be employed, and real money if what is bought is real. Children 
 may take turns acting as store manager to keep a sharp over- 
 sight of the clerk and see that he makes no mistake in making 
 change. After a little play of this kind under the teacher's 
 supervision the children can proceed independently. 
 
 A toy grocery store may be used instead, selling articles of a 
 size suitable for the doll house. 
 
 Homes in Other Lands or Other Days. 
 A colonial home, all its differences from ours discussed, an 
 Eskimo home, an Indian home, a Japanese home, a tropical 
 home, may be constructed. The sand table will be desirable for 
 some of these, since the environment is as distinctive as is the 
 home itself. 
 
 Sand-Tatle Projects. 
 A farm typical of the neighborhood, a dairy farm, an Arab 
 camp, a Dutch landscape, the story of the Three Little Pigs, The 
 
14 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Three Bears, Red Riding Hood, or anything else the children are 
 studying which they desire to represent, in this way may be con- 
 structed on the sand table. In the stories the several scenes may 
 be separately portrayed. Useful materials for sand-table con- 
 struction are twigs for trees, a sheet of glass over blue paper for 
 water, tin-foil for silver articles, clay for shaping animals, clothes- 
 pins for people (wishbones with heads of wax or some similar 
 substance may also be used, or dolls of rags or corn shucks), bits 
 of cloth for clothing, broomstraw, stiff paper, or toothpicks, to 
 build fences, flour and salt for snow, two parts of flour to one 
 of salt, cardboard and paper for buildings, vehicles, furniture, 
 etc. If clay is not to be had, cut paper figures of people or 
 animals, paste together two thicknesses, and insert between tooth- 
 picks or straws to stick in the sand and enable them to stand up- 
 right. As soon as this sort of work begins to take hold of your 
 pupils, encourage the collection of various articles that seem 
 likely to be of use, bright paper, stiff cardboard, pictures, etc. 
 Have a drawer or cupboard in which such miscellaneous material 
 may be kept for the children's undirected use whenever they 
 feel a need for it. 
 
 Posters or Charts. 
 
 The same or other ideas may be expressed by cutting and 
 pasting. 
 
 Type 1. "Save These" and "Eat These" were two war-time 
 posters made by a first grade. On the former were silhouettes 
 cut by patterns, of hogs, beef, cattle, and sheep. The latter 
 showed vegetables, fowls, fruit. This is the simplest form of 
 poster, with almost no original work by the pupils. 
 
 Type 2. Another school showed posters with the same titles, 
 but these were made with pictures, cut from magazines or cata- 
 logs, of flour, sugar, hogs, hams, candy, wheat, breakfast foods, 
 etc., on the one ; and oatmeal, corn products, etc., on the other. 
 Here the children had contributed a larger share, for they had 
 searched out the pictures, at home as well as at school. 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 Parts o£ Poster. The Three Bears. 
 
16 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Type 3. Still more original work is found in a poster whose 
 figures are cut free hand. The story of the Three Bears, each 
 episode represented by a group of cuttings which the children 
 share in creating, is an example. An Eskimo poster that was 
 very effective had dull blue or gray paper for the sky, white 
 paper pasted below for snow, sleds and dogs cut out of gray 
 paper and pasted on in the desired position; houses cut out of 
 white paper and pasted against the blue sky; Eskimos cut out 
 of canton flannel, each with a paper face pasted under the open- 
 ing cut in the hood. The farm may be represented poster fashion, 
 as well as on the sand table. These cuttings may be pasted on 
 a plain manila or gray mount, or the background may be col- 
 ored with blackboard crayons to represent sky and grass, as for 
 the Three Bears walking in the woods, or the farm poster. 
 
 Type 4. ' ' Product charts ' ' are usually made by fastening to a 
 cardboard mount actual samples, not pictures. A corn chart is 
 made when corn is being studied. It will show a section of the 
 ear, a small bunch of shucks, and various products of com — 
 meal, hominy, "grits, " corn syrup in a small vial, corn starch, 
 a corncob doll, miniature corn-shuck mats, a basket of braided 
 corn shucks, etc. Similar charts may be made for piae, wheat, 
 cotton, or other familiar agricultural products. 
 
 A chart of Type 2 which will furnish basis for number work, 
 may represent the articles in a store, as a toy store at Christmas, 
 a grocery, a furniture store. The pictures are cut from adver- 
 tising pages of catalogs, and prices are fixed to each ia plain 
 sight. The children select the articles they desire and pay for 
 them in toy money or merely state their cost. Suggestions for 
 several projects of this kind are found in Harris and "Waldo's 
 First Journeys in Numberland, Scott, Poresman & Co., Chicago. 
 
 Type 1 or Type 3 may be used for blackboard borders, but 
 Type 1 should be the work of only the youngest pupils, and of 
 them only early in the year. Use the "Patterns" in school 
 magazines, not as patterns, but as suggestions of appropriate 
 ideas for which your pupils will work out their own expression. 
 
Educative Seat Work 17 
 
 Usually do not even show the magazine posters to the children. 
 Let them cut from their ideas, not from picture copies. 
 
 Scrap Books. 
 
 Scrap books may be of all kinds, from the eight-sheet book of 
 dressmaker's cambric, pasted with bright pictures to amuse the 
 baby, to the "paper doll house," profitable work for fourth and 
 fifth grades, if time permit. Collections of flowers, pressed, 
 fastened with gummed strips, and named ; leaf collections ditto ; 
 postcards; stamps of our country, with the name of the portrait 
 on each written by it ; flags of all nations, or just pretty pictures, 
 prettily arranged, are some variations of the scrap-book idea. 
 A "paper doll house" may be made in a scrap book or on large 
 oblong sheets of paper, about 20" by 12". A 20" by 5" strip 
 of wall paper with a small pattern, pasted across the lower half 
 of the oblong, serves as floor covering. Suitable furniture cut 
 from catalogs is arranged in each room and pasted into place. 
 Windows are drawn and curtained, pictures framed and hung, 
 and each room is made complete. With this, as with the doll 
 house, should go in class periods study and selection of desirable 
 house furnishings. 
 
 Booklets. 
 
 Children enjoy making booklets of all kinds, in which are as- 
 sembled samples of their work to take home. The simplest form 
 of booklet consists of sheets of paper of uniform size tied together 
 or clipped with paper fasteners. The outside sheets or the 
 "cover" of the book are usually of gray or dark-colored mount 
 paper, appropriately decorated. Among possible subjects for 
 booklets are an illustrated alphabet ; a number book ; the weather 
 record for the month ; geography booklets ; Christmas, Thanks- 
 giving, or Easter book; bird, tree, or flower record; Stevenson, 
 Hiawatha, or Mother Goose book; and individual dictionaries. 
 
 1. Illustrated Alphabet. The easiest form of this consists of 
 pictures cut from old books or magazines, one for each letter of 
 the alphabet, an apple, a boy, a cat, etc., and letters, also cut 
 
18 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 A 
 
 f^ 
 
 
 A Page from an Alphabet Book. 
 
 A Pago from a Number Book. Seven Little Dwarfs. 
 
Educative Seat Work 19 
 
 from magazines. The teacher may furnish all the material, or 
 the children may collect their own. The latter, of course, is de- 
 sirable. Beside each picture is pasted its initial letter. 
 
 Requiring a little more dexterity, but quite within first grade 
 ability, are silhouette pictures and letters cut free hand and 
 mounted in like fashion. A variation of both of these is a book 
 which shows on each page a picture, the word which names it, 
 and the initial letter of that word. In this case, rubber type or 
 sign markers should be used and the words and initials be 
 printed. 
 
 2. Number Book. This follows the same general plan as the 
 illustrated alphabet. Bach page contains a group of objects, 
 and the corresponding figure. As in the alphabet book above, 
 either free-hand cuttings or magazine pictures may be used here. 
 The figures are cut from calendar pads or free hand. The 
 numeral word may also be used with the figure, in which case it 
 is better to employ the sign marker or rubber type. Call on 
 familiar rhymes or stories for appropriate groups of objects : two 
 little blackbirds ; three blind mice, or three bears, or three pigs ; 
 four-leaf clovers; five fingers; six soldiers, marching two by 
 two; Snowwhite's seven dwarfs; eight candles on a l)irthday 
 cake ; nine of Bopeep 's sheep ; ten little Indians. On another 
 page the same number may be represented by domino arrange- 
 ments of dots. These dots may be cut out and pasted on, or 
 may be printed with an ink-bottle stopper. 
 
 A little later the children can make another kind of number 
 book in which on one page is shown a domino grouping of dots 
 or a row or column of square inches, and on the opposite page, 
 written or printed, the number facts seen in that grouping. 
 From a group of five objects, for example, the following facts 
 may be derived: 1 and 4 are 5, 2 and 3 are 5, 3 and 2 are 5, 
 4 and 1 are 5, 5 less 1 are 4, 5 less, 2 are 3, 5 less 3 are 2, 5 less 
 4 are 1, 5 times 1 are 5. The children use the plus, minus, and 
 equivalence signs in writing these. They are expected to know 
 the facts which they have put in their books. 
 
 3. A Weather Record for the month gives to each day a page 
 on which appears the name of the day and the day of the 
 
20 Educative Seat Work 
 
 month, pasted or printed, and a representation picture of the 
 weather and any other interesting fact about the day by drawing, 
 cutting, or paste. Second or third grades may write the day of the 
 week and month, and add to this a few simple statements, as 
 "This is a cold day. This morning there was ice. The sky is 
 blue and clear. The wind is blowing from the north. 
 
 4. A Bird, Tree, or Flower Record is made much as is the 
 weather record, with date and illustrated statementsl. The 
 illustrations may be drawings, free-hand cuttings, or pressed 
 leaves and flowers. The statement should be simple, but ade- 
 quate; "To-day I saw a bluebird. He was on a fence. His 
 breast was red. His back was blue. He was singing. His 
 song is very pretty." 
 
 5. Geography Booklet. Here are represented by drawings or 
 cuttings the subject of the day's study, which may be a hill or 
 a river, or scenes in the life of Gemila, the child of the desert, 
 or the child 's own home environment. Under each picture a few 
 sentences tell its story. 
 
 Older children may make booklets on Cotton, Corn, Wheat, 
 the story of a Pair of Shoes, Japan, Our Country, My Home 
 State, Where Uncle Sam Gets His Meat, or other like subject, 
 using clippings, pictures from magazines, maps, diagrams, and 
 some composition material. A set of state booklets may have 
 covers shaped like the outline of the state they tell of. 
 
 6. Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter booklets may be a com- 
 bination of reading or .language lessons and illustrations. The 
 little children will bind into their reading lessons worked out 
 on the blackboard and later mimeographed by the teacher or an 
 older pupil. They may also print a page of new words they have 
 learned in these reading lessons, or may couple pictures and 
 printed or script words. One page may picture a laden Christ- 
 mas tree with the name of ,eaeh gift pasted beside it, another 
 may show Santa Glaus or the stockings hung before the fire 
 with a printed line or two, "The stockings were hung by the 
 chimney with care," or "A stump of a pipe he held tight in his 
 teeth," perhaps. The older children will have original stories, 
 copied poems, or clippings they like, all illustrated. 
 
Educative Seat Work 21 
 
 7. Stevenson, Hiawatha, or Mother Goose booklets, for the 
 youngest children, are constructed on the Stamp kraft plan, 
 merely a matching of picture and appropriate line or stanza. 
 The pictures are free-hand drawings or cuttings, or, for very 
 little folks, may be traced. The children take the books home 
 and read the verses to mother. 
 
 Older children select the poems, rhymes, or stanzas they like, 
 best, copy them, and illustrate them, each one planning his own 
 illustrations. Booklets for other children's authors may be 
 used, or a collection of material on some chosen topic, selected 
 from various authors. Thus we may have Flower Stories and 
 Poems, or Farm Friends, or a Book of Friendly Birds. 
 
 8. Individual Dictionaries. The third, and perhaps the second, 
 grade children may collect spelling words — all those they have to 
 ask for and the words they miss. Keep in a loose-leaf booklet of 
 twenty-six leaves just wide enough for one word on a line and 
 about eight inches long. If there are more words under any 
 letter than will go on a page, insert extra pages. Use these col- 
 lections of words for reviews, for spelling matches, for words to 
 use in written or oral sentences, and for reference. 
 
 Other suggestions and more detailed directions for many of 
 the projects described above are to be found in Dobb's Primary 
 Handwork, published by the Macmillan Company, New York. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Smaller Projects: Handwork and Drawing. 
 
 In the preceding section, continued reference has been made 
 to such forms or handwork as free-hand drawing and cutting, 
 design, lettering, paper folding, and weaving. It is the purpose 
 of this section to give more specific suggestions for each of these 
 and to describe other smaller projects in construction. 
 
 Wall Paper, Linoleum, Tiling. 
 
 The making of wall paper, linoleum, tiling, etc., for furnishing 
 a doll house, affords exercises in much of the formal designing 
 
22 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Spots colored with crayon and pasted on background. 
 
 Background and design harmonize in color. 
 
 Designs for Wall Paper Borders 
 
Educative Seat Work 23 
 
 that is sometimes such a bugbear in drawing. For example, if 
 the children need to measure inches, and draw parallel lines with 
 a ruler, such an exercise may be made pleasurable by turning 
 it into the making of oilcloth for the kitchen or bathroom of the 
 doll house. After the lines are drawn vertically, they may be 
 crossed by horizontal lines, and the resulting checkerboard pat- 
 tern may be colored in its alternate squares with crayons or 
 water colors. More difficult patterns may be worked out, if 
 desired. Wall paper may be made simply by a pretty arrange- 
 ment of parallel lines. For example, there may be two lines a 
 quarter of an inch apart, then an inch space, then three lines 
 a quarter of an inch apart. Or lines may alternate with bands 
 of color, a quarter- or a half -inch wide, to stimulate the ribbon- 
 striped wall papers. Or a simple design, like fleur-de-lis, a con- 
 ventionalized tulip, or some other form that the children can 
 copy by means of a stencil or a paper pattern, may be repeated 
 at regular intervals over the paper. A stencil is made by draw- 
 ing the desired design on stiff paper and cutting out the paper 
 within the outline. This is then used as a guide for the pencil 
 in drawing the repeated form on the paper, to be later colored. 
 A pattern may sometimes be cut of stiff paper, and drawn 
 around at each repeat. The ruler will be called into use to 
 arrange the figure in its proper positions for the repetition. 
 Sometimes it is well to have the wall paper all in a solid color, 
 and only the border showing a design. The teacher has much 
 opportunity in this connection to develop her pupils' taste. 
 What is suitable in the kitchen, the dining room, the hall, the 
 bedroom, etc., should be considered, as should the relative size 
 of the space to be papered and the size of the pattern, and the 
 suitability of the color. 
 
 It will be seen that all this cannot be done by the pupils with- 
 out any assistance from the teacher. Such instruction as is 
 necessary should be given in a drawing or manual training 
 period, and the work should be completed in following seat- 
 work periods. The teacher will need to remember the unformed 
 condition of her pupils ' taste, and since she cannot give them her 
 
24 Educative Seat Work 
 
 constant oversight in their designing, she will need to give them 
 at first some good models to copy or to select among, later throw- 
 ing them very largely upon their own devices. 
 
 Weaving 
 
 Weaving may begin with the first grade children with very 
 simple paper weaving, using inch-wide strips. The mats and 
 strips should be measured, ruled, and cut by the children. If this 
 work is too hard for the first grade, call in the help of the second 
 and even the third grade. Later the strips may be made half an 
 inch wide, and then a quarter of an inch. These mats may be 
 made inta covers for booklets, envelopes for sachets, etc., or 
 utilized in the doll house. When the children gain ability to 
 work out pretty designs, they should be used as tiling in the doll 
 house. 
 
 Another form of weaving is done on simple looms. These 
 may be made of a stiff piece of cardboard, such as the back of a 
 large tablet. An inch from each end draw a line across the 
 cardboard. Beginning an inch from the side, on the line, 
 measure off spaces one-fourth inch apart and put dots. Punch a 
 hole through each dot. Be sure to let the children do all this 
 measuring themselves. Then let them string the warp threads 
 through the holes, so that on the upper side of the loom, where 
 the weaving is to be done, will appear just parallel lines of 
 thread, half an inch apart, and on the wrong side just a row of 
 big stitches top and bottom. The woof threads may be any kind 
 of light weight cloth that the community rag bags furnish, cut 
 in strips about half an inch wide, and made into balls as for 
 rag carpets. Muslin does very nicely, so does silkaline, denim 
 is too heavy for good close weaving, soft goods will be better 
 than those stifHy starched. The first rugs may be woven all of 
 one kind of rags, or hit and miss. Next try rugs with a border 
 pattern, necessitating two kinds of rags. Yarn may be used 
 instead, if it is available. Pillowtops woven of rags are good. 
 
 Tam-o-shanter caps are woven of zephyr yarn on circular 
 cardboard looms. The warp is of zephyr and is threaded from 
 
Educative Seat Work 25 
 
 the center, and held in place at the circumference by small 
 notches. The weaving is round and round, and, when it has 
 covered one side of the circular card it is continued on the 
 under side about half way to the center. Then the yet unwoven 
 warp threads are cut at the center, and each two adjacent threads 
 tied together to prevent the weaving from slipping off. The 
 tied ends are turned under out of sight. 
 
 By using shaped cardboard looms, and weaving across one 
 side, then across the other, back to the starting point, and so on 
 as when making a pot holder, doll sweaters and. mittens are 
 made. "Schute weaving cards" designed for this work, are 
 handled by Milton Bradley Co., New York. With one or two to 
 give the idea, the children can make their own, cutting the pat- 
 terns to fit their own dolls or their own hands. 
 
 Weaving needles for the rag rugs may be made by the boys. 
 Whittle flat wooden needles about ten inches long, half an inch 
 wide, and about an eighth of an inch thick. Point one end and 
 cut a long eye in the other to carry the rag strips. Large bod- 
 kins may be used for the smaller pieces. 
 
 Paper Cutting 
 
 Paper cutting needs and deserves elaboration. The simplest 
 form of paper cutting, of course, is cutting to line, cutting out 
 pictures by following their outlines. Anyone who has ever 
 watched little children at work with scissors will realize that 
 this is no small task for many of them, though many children 
 will be found who handle the scissors easily. For the beginners, 
 then, early in the year, projects are desirable which require 
 cutting out pictures found in magazines or catalogs, or mimeo- 
 graphed by the teacher, or outlined by the children themselves 
 from patterns or stencils. Posters, blackboard borders, charts, 
 and booklets that call for this type of work are in place here. 
 
 Very early, however, free-hand cutting should be introduced. 
 It is possible to do so from the very first. Many teachers fear 
 to undertake this, as they avoid free-hand drawing, because of 
 their own inability, or fancied inability. A very important fact 
 
26 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 for a primary teacher to realize is that she need not herself draw 
 or cut in order to have her pupils do so. In fact, it is generally- 
 better that she shall not, for each child then develops his own 
 ideas, without the hampering effect of imitation. The first free- 
 hand cutting lessons should be very simple. Everybody can cut 
 the rows of boys or girls, holding hands, that our mothers used 
 to make for us out of a strip of paper, folded in the middle 
 again and again, and then cut in the form of one-half of a human 
 
 Illustration of Paper Cutting. Figures cut separately and mounted. 
 
 outline. Cut a row of girls with the children, then have them 
 cut a row alone. Have them try next a row of boys, then boys 
 and girls cut separately and without folding, necessitating cut- 
 ting both sides of the silhouette. Could we cut other things 
 besides boys and girls? Each of you cut something and see if 
 we can guess it. Good things to cut are rabbits, squirrels, hens, 
 trees, houses. Encourage the children to cut objects large enough 
 10 show when displayed from the front of the room. A good 
 way to make the display quickly is to have a bowl of water on 
 the teacher's desk. Each cutting is dipped in this and pasted 
 against the blackboard, where it will stay till it dries. Save 
 tablet paper which has been used on only one side for practice 
 
Educative Seat Work 27 
 
 material. A class project may be a mother hen and a flock of 
 little chickens, each child cutting one or more of each, the best 
 being selected, grouped, and mounted by the children. They will 
 delight to show the whole story of Goldilocks, by cutting of the 
 bears, their chairs, bowls, and beds, the table with the three 
 
 Children's Free-hand Cuttings in One Piece. Third Grade. 
 
 bowls upon it. Goldilocks at the door of the little house, tasting 
 the baby bear's soup, breaking down his chair, lying in his bed, 
 and finally jumping from the window. 
 
 Another and more difficult form of cutting is the representa- 
 tion of the whole scene in one piece, instead of cutting the parts 
 and pasting them together. For example, in illustrating the 
 
28 Educative Seat Work 
 
 home of Hiawatha, the one sheet of paper may be cut into a 
 one-piece silhouette, showing the ground with tall pine trees and 
 hemlocks, and in their midst the wigwam. Some childreu do 
 this kind of cutting very well, and where a pupil shows ability 
 along this line he should be encouraged to make silhouettes to 
 illustrate his various booklets, or perhaps for the puppet shows 
 referred to elsewhere. Other children will do better when the 
 cuttings are made of each object separately and then assembled. 
 
 All of these types of paper cutting are possible, with vary- 
 ing degrees of excellence, for even first grade pupils, and may 
 be extended, with greater nicety of execution, into second and 
 third-grade work. Such cuttings should be used to decorate and 
 illustrate booklets of various kinds, to make valentines and 
 Easter cards, to keep weather records, and for other uses already 
 suggested. 
 
 A very different form of paper cutting is the making of 
 symmetrical designs with folded paper. Many lacey valentines 
 may be made by folding the paper at the center four or eight 
 times and cutting out oval, round, or oblong spaces. Such cut- 
 tings also make good "centerpieces" for the doll house table. 
 Simpler symmetrical cuttings, such as leaves or flowers, made by 
 folding once, are useful as patterns for stencils or motifs to be 
 mounted as a decoration across the top of a booklet cover, or 
 perhaps as a decoration all around it. Many variations of this 
 will suggest themselves. For this purpose, cutting by a pattern 
 is good. After the children design the unit, have them use it as 
 a pattern, and cut all the replica exactly by it. 
 
 The "bird-cage," dear to childish hearts a generation ago, 
 was made by folding a square of paper on the diagonal, then 
 again on the other diagonal, then bisecting the angle at the 
 center, and once again, after which it was cut, first on one side 
 and then on the other, as far across as possible without actually 
 cutting the folded paper in two, and finally the outside edge cut 
 so as to form a circle when the paper was unfolded. This out- 
 side edge might be held in the hand or pasted to a circular paper 
 bottom, when, taking the center of the paper in the fingers, the 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 29 
 
 weight of the cardboard or the pull of the other hand would 
 stretch the paper out into truly "bird-cage" shape. These may 
 be used as decorations for a Christmas tree, if made in papers 
 of different colors. 
 
 Letters Cut Free-hand from Squares of Paper. 
 
 Chicken-wire fencing for the sand table farm is similarly 
 made. Cut an ordinary 8" by 10" sheet of tablet paper in half 
 lengthwise, making two strips 4" by 10". Fold one of the 
 strips lengthwise through the middle; fold this folded strip 
 again lengthwise, and yet again, making a strip 10" long of eight 
 thicknesses. Now cut nearly across the end of the folded strip 
 from the right, then just below from the left, and so continue 
 cutting, first one side and then the other, making the slits not 
 more than 1^4 iiich apart. Unfold, take by both ends, stretch out 
 as far as possible without tearing, and fasten to "fence posts." 
 
 Free-hand cutting of letters has been mentioned in the pre- 
 ceding section. Use for each letter a square of paper. A square 
 inch is a good average size, but this of course must be determined 
 by the use to which the letter is to be put. If necessary for 
 symmetry, as in the letters E and F, for example, a bit may be 
 
30 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 A First-Grade Child's IHustration for a Peter Rabbit Book. Free-hand Drawing 
 Colored Crayon. Average. 
 
 Free-hand Drawing in Colored Crayon. Average or below. First and Second Grade 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 31 
 
 i<:^. 
 
 Free-hand Drawing in Pencil. Average or 
 below. First and second grade. 
 
 Free-hand Drawing of Flowers 
 in Colored Crayon. Average 
 or below. First and second 
 grade. 
 
 Free-hand Drawing of Leaves. First and 
 second grade. 
 
32 Educative Seat Work 
 
 cut off the width, but usually an approximately square outline 
 makes a very pretty letter. 
 
 "Tearing" is sometimes used for paper-cutting, especially 
 where scissors are not to be had. A very pretty frieze for the 
 Christmas blackboard may be made by tearing and mounting 
 at regular intervals on a manila paper background. 
 
 Free-Hand Drawing. 
 
 Prom the very first, children should be encouraged to repre- 
 sent or illustrate by means of pictures of their own conception 
 and execution. Colored crayons are desirable for little children's 
 use. The pictures should be both of still life and of action. 
 Stories may be represented by pictures as well as by dramatiza- 
 tion. Encourage such representation. Flowers and leaves make 
 models children love to draw. "Work for light outlines, or no 
 outlines at all. You will be surprised to see how well a child 
 can represent a leaf or flower by coloring within an imaginary 
 outline. Let each child have his own specimen to draw from. 
 He can either hold it in his left hand in a position that he likes, 
 or prop it up on his desk, or lay it on a sheet of white paper. 
 
 Paper Folding. 
 
 Paper folding is too elaborate to be more than mentioned here, 
 but an endless variety of boxes, soldier caps, chairs, cradles, 
 sleds, and what not else may be made with the magic "sixteen- 
 fold" and its modifications. Many designs for such work are 
 found in "The Industrial Primary Header, " D. C. Heath; The 
 Practical Drawing Book, Arts and Crafts Course, Books I to 
 III; Prang's Progressive Lessons in Art Education, Industrial 
 Arts Edition, Books I and III ; and other manuals listed at the 
 end of this bulletin. 
 
 Much of the work in paper folding must first be done under 
 the teacher's supervision. This is suitable work for either hand- 
 work or number periods, the latter because so much arithmetic 
 may be objectively taught in connection with the folding, such 
 as form — squares, triangles, oblongs ; terms — horizontol, vertical. 
 
Educative Seat Work 33 
 
 perpendicular, angle, right angle; fractions — halves, fourths, 
 eighths, sixteenths, and such facts as that two fourths make one 
 half, four sixteenths make one fourth, etc. : multiplication — four 
 rows of four squares each make sixteen squares ; and many other 
 facts. 
 
 After a lesson has been given in which the teacher 's directions 
 have been followed under her supervision, it is well to have the 
 children try to make at their seats the same objects, with the 
 privilege of studying, for assistance, the model made under 
 direction. A good motive for such repeated work is to make a 
 better one than was produced at the first effort. Many of the 
 folded forms will be needed in quantity; for example, chairs for 
 the doll house, boxes for the Christmas tree, and in such ease no 
 further motive is needed for making over the same form. Another 
 way to make the repetition attractive is to have the first model 
 made in plain paper, and to use for that made in the seat work 
 time pretty colored paper of some kind. After the children 
 have had enough experience in handling the paper to begin to 
 originate, they should be encouraged to do so. It may be that 
 some of the children will find it easy to do this folding unas- 
 sisted, and it will certainly be true that some of them will not. 
 In such case, the more capable should be led to help the weaker, 
 with due emphasis on the fact that what is desired of them is to 
 show the others how to make the desired form, rather than 
 merely to make it for them. Children in the same grade may 
 help each other, or the help may be given by a higher to a lower 
 grade. 
 
 Clay Modeling. 
 
 Clay modeling is excellent work for those who have the clay. 
 Clay flour may be bought and moistened as necessary. One 
 handbook states that five pounds of clay flour is enough to fur- 
 nish individual material to twelve children for a year. In some 
 communities there will be found native clay which is workable. 
 The following directions for a substitute for clay are quoted 
 from instructions issued by the Manual Training Department of 
 the Elementary Schools of Chicago. "Paper pulp is a substance 
 
34 Educative Seat Work 
 
 which any one can easily make and use in place of clay for model- 
 ing. The material costs nothing and is so clean and pleasant to 
 work with, it is surprising paper pulp has not been more generally 
 applied to constructive work. To make pulp of paper mache, 
 tear any waste paper (newspaper or writing paper will do) into 
 pieces not larger than one inch square. Pill a bucket with these 
 bits of paper and pour over it about a gallon of hot water (boil- 
 ing). Let the paper soak for five or six hours and then drain 
 ofE the excess water. If now the mass of wet paper is worked 
 vigorously with a stick, churning it and thus tearing the bits of 
 paper very fine, you will have, at the end of a few minutes, an 
 excellent quality of paper pulp. The pupils will enjoy the mak- 
 ing as well as the using of this material. ' ' 
 
 Whatever the substance you use for modeling, the children 
 may make of it all kinds of objects — animals for the farmyard 
 (use sticks or fine wire as a basis to strengthen slender parts), 
 fruits and vegetables for the barn, Easter rabbits, bowls and 
 vases, candlesticks, and so on. 
 
 The possibilities of coloring the clay with water colors needs 
 especial mention. Children make really beautiful things, paper 
 weights, pin trays, candlesticks, bowls, etc., with raised designs, 
 which then are colored so as to give something of a majolica 
 effect. Tiny cubes and cylinders of clay, decorated with water 
 color design in stripes or spots, make oriental-looking bead neck- 
 laces. None of the vessels made of clay can be used to hold 
 water, of course, unless they are fired, and this limits to some 
 extent the clay projects which it is usually profitable to attempt. 
 
 Wood Block Printing. 
 
 ' ' Wood block printing, " as a means of decoration, has recently 
 become a noteworthy craft. For the little folks a very simple 
 form of it is possible. Printer s iak, is, of course, a good medium 
 to use if it can be secured in desirable colors ; oil paints are ex- 
 cellent, but expensive; but more or less satisfactory work can 
 be done with common ink, water colors, or other coloring fluid. 
 Make a pad of some soft absorbent cloth, like cheesecloth, using 
 
Educative Seat Work 35 
 
 several thicknesses on a flat surface such as a piece of glass, a 
 slate, or a flat plate. Moisten the pad thoroughly with the color- 
 ing tiuid, but do not have the liquid standing in puddles on top 
 of the cloth. The end of a match may be used to make a circular 
 stamp. Press down the end on the pad and then press it on the 
 surface to be decorated, and repeat to form the border or other 
 design. Other sticks may be whittled with square or trian- 
 gular ends, or in other simple shapes, and used in combination 
 with the match end. For example, a border might consist of a 
 repetition of two circles alternated with a triangle, or with a 
 square. Other combinations may easily be worked out. 
 
 For those who feel that the cost of water colors for individual 
 supply is prohibitive, it is suggested that the contents of a tube, 
 or one of the cakes of color which are often used, be dissolved 
 in enough water to make a good tone of the color, and the solu- 
 tion kept in a bottle and used as desired. In many case it may 
 be found quite possible that each child will be provided with a 
 box of colors. There is considerable opportunity for experi- 
 ment with substitutes for water colors, such, for example, as some 
 of the dyes now on the market. 
 
 Basketry. 
 
 If native materials are available, a small amount of this sort 
 of work will furnish profitable seat occupation. Corn shucks, 
 honeysuckle vines, long grasses, rushes, and needle clusters 
 of the long-leafed pine are native materials frequently avail- 
 able. The honeysuckle vines should be scalded to toughen 
 them, and should be soaked well just before being used and kept 
 in a pan of water till actually in use. Grasses, rushes, shucks, 
 and pine-needles are all made pliable for work by soaking about 
 ten minutes before using, warm water being required for the 
 pine-needles. The United States Bureau of Education has a 
 bulletin, No. 3, 1917 series, on Pine-Needle Basketry in schools, 
 which gives full directions and numerous illustrations. "Write 
 for it. 
 
 Mats may be made of plaited cornshucks, sewed together with 
 strong cord or with raffia. Or the shucks may be wrapped and 
 
36 Educative Seat Work 
 
 sewn with raffia or twine. Yery pretty small mats may be made 
 of rushes wrapped and sewn with raffia, or braided and sewn. 
 Rushes and eornshucks may be used, too, for small baskets, long 
 stems of honeysuckle vine may be used with raffia, just as the 
 commercial reed is used, in the making of mats and baskets. Some 
 grasses are good to wrap and sew with light-weight cord into 
 small baskets, such as button baskets. Sometimes the materials 
 may be dyed for border designs. There is much opportunity for 
 interesting study ia connection with dyeing, using the native 
 roots, barks, and berries, as our grandmothers used to do. Elder- 
 berry, pokeberry, and walnut are suggested as likely to be of 
 use for this purpose. 
 
 Spool Knitting. 
 
 This is an old art, familiar to many a child. Large spools are 
 better than small, as easier to handle. Two, three, or four pegs 
 may be used. Very good results are achieved with two. Into 
 the head of a spool, on either side of the central hole, drive two 
 very small wire nails or large pins. Take one end of the yam 
 or cord to be used, and thread it through the spool hole, holding 
 it with the left hand while the right winds the other end about 
 the pins in a figure eight coil. Then carry the long end around 
 outside the pegs, and as it passes each one, with a wire hairpin 
 or stout pin raise the loop that is around the pin above the 
 passing thread and over the top of the pin. Pull the short end 
 at the bottom of the spool, when the "stitch" that has just been 
 taken settles into place, leaving a new loop on the pin formed 
 by the just brought thread. So the long thread goes round and 
 round, each time it passes a pin being caught and held on the 
 loop already on it, which is raised above it and dropped. Of 
 the braid thus knitted, mats, doll caps, slippers, etc., may be 
 made. With five pins, horse reins are knitted. 
 
 Those who wish further information are advised to consult 
 Spool Knitting by Mary A. McCormack, published by A. S. 
 Barnes & Co., New York. 
 
Educative Seat Work 37 
 
 Sewing. 
 
 Simple sewing, for the third grade, and perhaps for a few of 
 the younger pupils, may include bags to hold individual drinking 
 cups, work bags, bags for the boys' marbles, bags to be hung 
 at the side of the desk and hold the busy-work material when it 
 is not in use, pincushions of two pieces of cardboard, covered 
 and whipped together, towels and dishcloths or dusteloths 
 hemmed for the schoolroom, fancy-work aprons ; sheets, curtains, 
 and patch-work quilts for the doll house, perhaps tiny sofa 
 cushions too ; doll clothes, Indian clothes for the Indian dolls on 
 the sand table, tiny moccasins made of scraps of old kid gloves, 
 peanut dolls dressed in Chinese clothing, the hickory nut doll our 
 grandmothers used to dress like a quaint old lady. Surely these 
 give at least something on which to begin, with the assurance 
 that if we keep our eyes open we shall find something else that 
 really needs sewing when we are done with these. 
 
 Bead Necklaces. 
 
 Materials which may be used for this purpose include the usual 
 kindergarten beads, peas or corn, lengths of wheat or oat straw, 
 rosehips and some berries, macaroni or spaghetti, paper beads, 
 and others that may occur to the teacher. Pour boiling water 
 over straws to prevent them from splitting, drying when cool 
 by wrapping loosely in a cloth or towel. Soak peas and corn 
 before using. Make various combinations. For example, alter- 
 nate two peas with one straw, the needle running the long way 
 of the straw; alternate two peas with three grains of corn; one 
 pea, one straw, and two grains, and so on. The numbers used 
 may be those you are especially trying at the time to teach. It 
 is a good plan to have the children lay the materials to be used 
 on their desks in the order chosen, and have the teacher see that 
 they are correctly placed before they begin to string. The pencil 
 groove on the desk is a good place to lay them, to prevent roll- 
 ing. In addition to directed arrangements, the children may be 
 allowed to originate, with the single specification that there be a 
 regular pattern planned before the string is really made. 
 
38 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Macaroni and spaghetti, cut into half or quarter-inch lengths, 
 and colored with water colors, make really beautiful necklaces, 
 and aiford much opportunity for originality in design. 
 
 To make paper beads, use colored pages from magazines, 
 fashion plates, or catalogs. Cut out a triangular piece, with the 
 base as long as the bead is to be when finished, i. e., from half an 
 inch to an inch, and the height of the triangle six or seven inches. 
 It will, of course, taper off in a long point. Around a hatpin 
 wrap the triangle, beginning with the base, and wrapping round 
 and round, pasting the point down when all wrapped. The hat- 
 pin, slipped out, leaves an opening for stringing. These beads 
 may be made by the older children, but take more finger skill 
 than the primary children are likely to have. 
 
 Jointed Toys. 
 Jointed toys. These may be cut out of stiff paper, cardboard, 
 or thin wood. The latter, of course, requires a coping saw and is 
 too hard for the little children. In the beginning, patterns may 
 be used, but it is desirable that the children early come to make 
 their own patterns. The Junior Red Cross 1918 Teachers Manual 
 has a section on "How to Make Toys," which is rich in sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 MisceUnneoits. 
 
 1. Valentines of all kinds are popular. Lacey hearts, made by 
 folding and cutting double, as in making chains of paper dolls ; 
 hearts cut of red paper and mounted on white ; flowers cut from 
 pretty wall paper or postcards and mounted on cards, or ar- 
 ranged with folded paper "lifters" at their corners; cupids cut 
 out and pasted on paper hearts are samples. 
 
 2. Christmas gifts afford great variety; pretty boxes to hold 
 candy or nuts, of folded paper ; woven paper blotter tops ; paper 
 lanterns and chains for the tree ; strings of popcorn ; pillowtops ; 
 pincushions, needlebooks, etc., in cross-stitch, for the third grade 
 children who can get the material ; iron holders of woven zephyr 
 or yarn, or of flannel coarsely buttonholed about the edges ; nap- 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 39 
 
 Jointed Toy. 
 
 first-grade jiroject. 
 
40 Educative Seat Work 
 
 kin rings of raffia ; little baskets and trays of honeysuckle vine or 
 grasses, or cornshucks, dyed, if desired, etc. 
 
 3. "Maybaskets" may be suggested, and much of the Christ- 
 mas weaving and braiding reviewed and extended for May Day. 
 
 4. Easter eggs are made of blown shells, with painted faces 
 and various styles of head dress. Easter cards are made simi- 
 larly to the valentines, but with eggs, rabbits, and lilies as the 
 basis of the decorations, instead of cupids and hearts. 
 
 5. A doll hammock is easily made, either by knotting or weav- 
 ing. For weaving make a loom of cardboard as follows: Use a 
 rectangle of cardboard as long and as wide as you wish the body 
 part of the hammock to be. Notch the ends closely to string 
 the warp threads. Fasten two small brass rings in the center 
 of the frame, and string the warp from one ring, over the first 
 notch in one end of the frame, down the other side to the cor- 
 responding notch at the other end of the frame, and on to the 
 other ring, then turn, and string all around back to the first 
 ring, and so on, till all the notches have been used. "Weave 
 solidly on one side for the body of the hammock, leaving the 
 cords on the other side to suspend it from the rings. Then un- 
 fasten the rings from the frame so the hammock will come oft", 
 and hang up by the rings. Use carpet warp or yarn for string- 
 ing and weaving. 
 
 6. Soft worsted balls may be made as follows : Cut two pieces 
 of cardboard into circles, each of the diameter desired for the ball. 
 From the center of each cut out a circle about one-third the 
 diameter of the whole. Lay these two circles together, and wrap 
 with zephyr, putting the end of the zephyr through the hole in 
 the center, around both thicknesses of card, and back in the 
 same hole, and so on, until the needle carrying the zephyr can 
 no longer be forced through the hole, and the cardboard is hid- 
 den under a thick wrapping- of yarn. Now with scissors cut 
 around the circumference of the circle, so that the inside of the 
 cardboards may be seen. With a stout thread run between the 
 two pieces of cardboard, tie tightly around the waist of the many 
 threads of zephyr that have been run through the hole, so as to 
 
Educative Seat Work 41 
 
 fasten them all together in the exact middle. Tear off the card- 
 board, and the cut ends of the zephyr wrapping will stand out 
 in a soft, round ball. 
 
 IV 
 
 Reading as Seat Occupation. 
 
 The many hours that children in good homes pass happily in 
 reading, the attraction which books have even for the very little 
 ones, the desirability of a taste for good books, and wide acquaint- 
 ance with them, and of the skill in using books which comes only 
 with much using, all these point to reading as a most important 
 type of seat occupation. The purpose of reading instruction is 
 not only to enable people to read, but also to cause them to read 
 with intelligence, with profit, and with pleasure. Too often a 
 school course in reading makes a child less, rather than more 
 likely, to read books that are profitable, develops little or no in- 
 telligence in selecting books or comprehending their contents, 
 and results in a feeling that reading is an irksome task rather 
 than one of life 's greatest sources of pleasure. 
 
 Seat Occupation With Books for Very Little Children. 
 
 How can seat occupation be provided for very little children 
 which will lead to intelligence, profit, and pleasure in the use of 
 books? The first answer to this is, through the provision of an 
 adequate supply of books suitable for very little children and 
 through their free access to such books. 
 
 A book suitable for the use of a beginner, one who cannot 
 read, must necessarily tell its story mainly by some means other 
 than reading. It must be full of pictures. The child will de- 
 rive much pleasure and profit from conning them, and through 
 his desire for the whole story of which they are part, is led to 
 master the art of reading. To contribute to this end it is well 
 that the picture books which are first brought to the attention of 
 the child as he begins school contain reading matter as attractive 
 as the pictures, and within his interest and comprehension. It 
 
42 Educative Seat Work 
 
 is well also that there be only a small amoimt of reading matter 
 for each picture, preferable in verse, that the child may readily 
 learn it and begin to associate meaning with the printed smybols. 
 
 As he begins to acquire a reading vocabulary a larger pro- 
 portion of reading matter is desirable, and books should be pro- 
 vided which are made up of good stories simply told and in 
 large print, and still profusely illustrated. It is also well that 
 the stories be short. As his reading power increases, increasingly 
 longer and more difficult stories should be available. 
 
 The collection of books to which the primary child has access 
 should not be limited to those entirely within his reading ability ; 
 there should, however, always be some which by effort he can 
 very shortly if not immediately read for himself. 
 
 A Suggestive List of Books for Beginners. 
 
 Since there is only a limited number of books especially de- 
 sirable for beginners, and even these are not generally well 
 known, the following list is presented, arranged roughly in order 
 of ease for little readers : 
 
 1. Books with a picture on every page, and with a very small 
 amount of reading matter accompanying it, a phrase, a sentence, 
 or a stanza. 
 
 This Little Pig 's Picture Boole. Walter Crane. Stone & Kimball, Chicago. 
 
 The Hey Diddle Diddle Picture Boole. E. Caldecott. Trederiek Wame 
 and Company, New York. 
 
 The Edward Lear Alphabet Boole. Eeilly and Button Company, Chicago. 
 
 Over in the Meadow. Olive Wadsworth. Morgan Shepard Co., New York. 
 
 Mother Earth's Children, or The Frolic of the Fruits and Vegetables. 
 Gordon and Boss. P. P. Volland and Company, New York. 
 
 Ehymes for Kindly Children. Snyder and Gruelle. P. P. Volland. 
 
 Peter Maibit. Beatrix Potter. P. Wame and Company, New York. 
 
 Little BlacTc Sambo. Helen Bannerman. Prederiek A. Stokes Co., 
 New York. 
 
 The Night Before Christmas. Any well-iUustrated edition. 
 
 Little Sed Hen. In verse. Any well-illustrated edition. 
 
 Pied Piper of Hamelin. Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Frederick 
 Warne and Company, New York. 
 
 Clean Peter and the Children of Grubbylea. Translated by Ada Wallas. 
 Longmans Green & Co., New York. 
 
 Mother Goose. Any well-illustrated edition. 
 
Educative Seat Work 43 
 
 Other Crane picture books, published by John Lane, The 
 Bodley Head, New York, are 
 
 Mother Euiiard's Picture Book, Bed Biding Picture Book, Cinderella 
 Picture Book, and Blue Beard's Picture Book. 
 
 All of these except the first have rather small print or long 
 stories. 
 
 2. Well illustrated short stories and child poems in easy lan- 
 guage. 
 
 The modern primary readers are among the very best examples 
 of this category. Among them may be mentioned 
 
 Free and Treadivell's Beading Literature Primer and First Beader. 
 Pow, Peterson & Co., Chieago, 111. 
 
 The Story Hour. Coe and Christie, First Year. American Book Co., New 
 York. 
 
 The Folklore Beader. Osgood, Book I. Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover, 
 Chicago. 
 
 Progressive Boad, Book I. Silver, Burdett & Co., New York. 
 
 Edson-Lang, Book I. B. H. Sanborn & Co., New York. 
 
 Beacon First Beader. Ginn & Co., New York. 
 
 Biverside Primer and First Beader. Houghton, Milflin Co., New York. 
 
 The Child's World Primer and First Beader. C. M. Clark Pub. Co., 
 Boston. 
 
 Other Books for First, Second, and Third Grades.' 
 
 Andrews. Seven Little Sisters. Ginn & Co., Xew York. 
 
 Each and All. Ginn & Co., New York. 
 Carroll. Around the World. Volume 1. Silver, Burdett & Co., New York. 
 Baldwin. Fairy Stories and Fables. American Book Co., New York. 
 Old Stories of the East. American Book Co., New York. 
 Howard. Banbury Cross Stories. Chas. E. Merrill, New York. 
 Bigham. Merry Animal Tales. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 
 *Blaisdell. Cherry Tree Children. 
 Bruce. The Doings of a Bear Little Couple. 
 
 Bryce. Dramatic Beaders. Books I and II. Charles Scribner 's. New York. 
 Carroll. Alice in Wonderland. Any well-illustrated edition. 
 
 Alice in the Looking Glass. Any well-illustrated edition. 
 Dopp. The Tree Dwellers. Eand-McNally & Co., New York. 
 
 The Early Cave Men. Eand-McNally & Co., New York. 
 The Later Gave Men. Eand-McNally & Co., New York. 
 Eggleston. Great Americans for Little Americans. American Book Co., 
 
 New York. 
 Eugene Field Beader. Chas. Scribner Sons. 
 *Fox. The Indian Primer. American Book Co., New York. 
 Grimm's Fairy Tales. 
 
 Hall. Weavers and Other Workers. Eand-McNally & Co., New York. 
 Hazard. Three Years with the Poets. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York. 
 *Holbrook. Hiawatha Primer. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York. 
 Kipling. Just So Stories. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 
 
 •These booVR are suitable for first grade. 
 
44 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Little Med Biding Mood, and TTie Seven Little Kids. Ed. Pub. Co., New York. 
 McMurry. Classic Stories. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, 111. 
 Muloch. Adventures of a Brwnie. Ed. Pub. Co., New York. 
 
 * Bow-wow and Mew-mew. Ed. Pub. Co., New York. 
 Perkins. The Dutch Twins. Houghton, MifBin Co., New York. 
 
 The Cave Twins. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York. 
 Reynard the Fox. American Book Co., New York. 
 Seudder. Fables, Folk Stories, and Legends. Houghton, Mifflin Co., 
 
 New York. 
 Shaw. Big People and Little People of Other Lands. American Book Co., 
 
 New York. 
 Skinner. Little Dramas. American Book Co., New York. 
 
 * Tiiby and Tabby. Duffield & Co., New York. 
 Smith. EsTcimo Stories. Eand-McNally & Co., New York. 
 
 Boggie and Beggie. Harper & Bros., New York. 
 Arabella and Araminta. Thompson, Brown & Co., New York. 
 Waterloo. Story of Ab. A. Elannagan Co., Chicago. 
 "*Wiltse. Folklore Stories and Proverbs. Ginn & Co., New York. 
 
 Using Books in Primary Grades. 
 
 Encourage in every way little children's use of books. Keep 
 them on a shelf in the bookcase that is within their easy reach, 
 and permit them to take them out freely. Have a low reading 
 table, around which the children can sit in small chairs, or 
 where several of them can look together over one book. Each 
 day have a few attractive books on this table, some of them open. 
 Have the children leave the books there when they are done with 
 them, as it is easier to keep the library in order for ready refer- 
 ence if only persons especially responsible return books to the 
 shelves. One or more of the older pupils may be appointed to 
 act as librarian. 
 
 Children may merely look at the pictures in a book, alone or 
 in small groups. In the latter case they should be allowed to 
 whisper together. They may "read" stanzas or stories which 
 have been read to them. They should certainly be read to a 
 great deal. The teacher should do this occasionally, frequently 
 an older child, perhaps from the fourth, third, or even second 
 grade, who reads well, may read to a little group around the 
 table, in the vestibule or cloakroom, even out of doors in warm 
 weather. As soon as even the beginners are able to read at all, 
 they should be expected to take part in class periods in which 
 each will entertain the group by reading a short story, poem, or 
 
 *Tliese books are suitable for first grade. 
 
Educative Seat Work 45 
 
 verse that he has found and liked. Enlist the help of one or more 
 older pupils to whom the younger children may occasionally go 
 when they are balked in their reading by some word they can- 
 not get for themselves. See that this is not overdone. It is best 
 that the children shall not undertake to read matter on which 
 they require frequent help. 
 
 From the beginning teach children to prize and care for books. 
 Show them how a new book is opened, how to turn the pages 
 without bending, how to keep their books clean by keeping clean 
 hands and by never moistening the forefinger to turn a page, 
 how to keep the place by a bookmark, without turning down 
 leaves or shutting a thick object like a pencil into a book. 
 
 Drill Exercises in Reading for Seat Work. 
 
 These will all come under the general heads of matching and 
 building and will use as their materials pictures, rhymes, phrases, 
 words, and letters. Very suggestive work in this line was done 
 some years ago in a experiment in the kindergarten of Teachers 
 College, which is fully described in the Teachers' College Record, 
 September, 1916, in an article entitled "The Use of Children's 
 Initiative in Beginning Reading," by Annie L. Moore. The fol- 
 lowing summary of portions of this article indicates the general 
 method. 
 
 Stamp kraft or other Mother Goose pictures were shown the 
 children. They recited the rhymes which tTie pictures illustrated, 
 and found other illustrations of the same rhymes in their picture 
 books. They gave names to the pictures, as Old Mother Goose, 
 Old King Cole, Three Little Kittens. "Reading puzzles were 
 made which involved the matching of appropriate titles to pic- 
 tures. For example, Stamp-kraft pictures illustrating well-known 
 Mother Goose rhymes were selected. They were mounted, and 
 under the pictures the phrase or couplet selected by the children 
 was printed. Duplicate pictures were mounted on plain cards 
 and the same titles were printed on small separate cards. The 
 
 children played with these very often The following is 
 
 the usual procedure. 
 
46 Educative Seat Work 
 
 "The two sets of cards were spread out on table or floor and 
 the duplicate pictures were arranged in pairs. Then the separate 
 printed cards were matched to the pictures which had no print- 
 ing, by comparison with those which had. Next, a few of the 
 cards containing both pictures and printing were put away or 
 turned face down, and titles were placed from memory. The 
 children proceeded in this manner until all the guide cards could 
 be dispensed with. ' ' 
 
 Later familiar couplets, as 
 
 Baa, baa, black sheep, 
 Have you any wool? 
 
 were cut across, and the children matched the two lines, first by 
 
 comparison with the whole couplet, later without such aid. A 
 
 further step was building up phrases or couplets out of the 
 
 words composing them, first by reference to the line which was 
 
 to be built, later without. 
 
 Such seat work as this is possible to a certain extent in any 
 school. Stamp-kraft pictures or pictures cut from worn-out 
 Mother Goose books or from old readers, and words, phrases, 
 sentences, and stanzas cut from the same sources and pasted on 
 stiff paper or thin cardboard for durability, or. printed with rub- 
 ber type or sign marker, or else written in good script by the 
 teacher or an older pupil, will afford the necessary material. 
 The following are types of work : 
 
 i. Match picture to title or rhyme, first with an already 
 matched picture and rhyme as guide, later without. 
 
 2. Match two parts of a couplet to each other, first with whole 
 couplet as guide, later without. The same exercise with the 
 lines of a four-line stanza, or even a longer rhyme. 
 
 3. Match words on separate cards with words in a phrase or 
 couplet either laying the separate word on top the same word 
 in the couplet, or else building a separate copy of the couplet 
 below or beside it. 
 
 4. Turn the card containing the whole couplet face down, and 
 build it from memory. Cheek by reference to the couplet. 
 
 5. Cut-up picture puzzles may be used to help children learn 
 the separate words of a familiar line, as an alternate method to 
 
Educative Seat Work 47 
 
 3 and 4 above. Suppose the line is "Jack and Jill went up the 
 hill." The picture illustrating this should be about the size of 
 an ordinary reader page. Under it print the line in good sized 
 type, spacing it so as to extend quite across the picture, with 
 only the ordinary reader margin on either side. Cut the picture 
 into vertical rectangular strips, each strip having at the bottom 
 one word of the line. Print the whole line in the same type 
 and spacing on another strip for the child's reference, if he so 
 desires. Have him put the picture together, then take it apart 
 again, beginning with the left strip, saying each word as it is 
 removed. 
 
 6. Find, draw, or trace from a pattern pictures repi-esenting 
 words learned in such exercises as those above, and couple with 
 the word. All name words, many action words, and the color 
 words can be matched in this way. The child may make a book 
 of such words and their illustrations. 
 
 7. Match script and print or capitalized and small letter forms 
 of the same word. 
 
 8. Leave on the board sentences used in the reading lesson of 
 the day. Have the children build them at their seats with word 
 cards.- From the beginning call attention to punctuation. Pro- 
 vide words beginning with capital as well as with small letters, 
 and check cases where incorrect forms are used. Provide cards 
 with period and with question mark as sOon as that mark is 
 needed. Be sure your own board work is correctly punctuated. 
 
 9. Have original sentences built, using words or phrases 
 already learned. Let the children read to each other and to the 
 class the sentences they build. 
 
 10. Have the pupil practice at his seat rapid naming to him- 
 self of words, each as he turn it up, in preparation for a race 
 in the class period. Every word he is not sure of he should put 
 to one side and later try to identify by looking for it in its 
 couplet. An identification number in the corner or on the back 
 of the rhyme card, and the same number on each word or phrase 
 card which is a part of it will not only expedite the work, but 
 
48 Educative Seat Work 
 
 will indicate in which box or envelope a word belongs that may- 
 have been dropped on the floor. 
 
 A Phonic Series. 
 
 After a number of words are learned, the children are ready 
 to discover and become familiar with their letter elements, for 
 future self-help. Very little value is derived from most of the 
 usual letter-building exercises, for they are almost always a 
 slavish copy of the letter order in a word that lies before the 
 children in plain sight. This copy work is not bad if only a 
 little of it is done, but it is easily overdone, and must be watched 
 lest it become entirely perfunctory. A class of children were 
 observed using the busy work cards which have on them the 
 picture of an animal and its name printed below it, the letters 
 of the name being then cut out, each in a distinctive shape, so 
 that only it fitted into the space. It was discovered, first, that some 
 of the children did not know the name of the animal of which 
 they had the picture ; second, that some of them did not know 
 that the oddly-shaped bits of card they were fitting in made its 
 name ; and third, that not one of them could build the name 
 without reference to the card. The only thing they were learn- 
 ing .was to distinguish the shapes of the cut-out pieces and the 
 spaces from which they came. 
 
 The following series of exercises is suggested as progressing, 
 so that the child is each day building on what he has done in 
 preceding days, just as he is expected to do in his class work. 
 
 1. Lay words already learned on desk, putting words begin- 
 ning with same letter under each other. In the recitation period 
 pronounce these words, then pronounce and point to the initial 
 letter. 
 
 2. Match each word in the column with its initial letter, saying 
 the word, then the first sound. 
 
 3. With the words not in columns, but miscellaneously ar- 
 ranged, match each with its initial. Say each word and its initial 
 sound. Do not lay on the desk any word not known. (Test ability 
 to pronounce the word and give the sound, in the recitation 
 period.) 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 49 
 
 A Phonic Key Card, 
 
 4. Match pictures used in preceding lessons, each with its 
 name word and initial sound. • Say each softly. 
 
 5. Make a key card for each sound known, consisting of a pic- 
 ture, its name word, and its initial letter all mounted on the 
 same card. 
 
50 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 Another Kind of Phonic Kev Card. 
 
 Cards for Phonic (james 
 
Educative Seat Work 51 
 
 6. Match key pictures with other pictures begiuning with same 
 sound. 
 
 7. Match pictures with initial sound, as many pictures as pos- 
 sible for same sound. 
 
 8. Make an alphabet book. (See directions on page 17.) 
 Series like this can be used for each initial sound. Final phono- 
 grams can be used in a similar way. Put together all words of 
 the same family, and beside each word build that word using its 
 initial letter and final phonogram; as, right r ight. 
 
 A phonogram game similar to Authors or to Old Maid can be 
 made and played by the children. Use small blank cards the 
 size of library cards. On each card paste, draw, or trace a pic- 
 ture whose name belongs to one of the word families the children 
 are learning, under the picture print its name, and under that 
 its phongram. Then, separated from the above by a line, print 
 one or three other words of the same family making a set of two 
 or four respectively. Play either like Old Maid, each child draw- 
 ing from his neighbor, and making a "book" of two cards of 
 the same family, or else like Authors, the player calling on 
 any other child for a card he wants to complete a set or "book," 
 four cards being required to make a book. 
 
 Writing as Seat Work. 
 
 Because it requires so little thought in preparation, because 
 the materials for it are always available, and probably also be- 
 cause it is thought to be educative, much writing is assigned for 
 seat work. This is extremely undesirable. As a matter of fact, 
 far more harm than good is done by any considerable amount of 
 unsupervised writing by little children. The results are likely 
 to be cramped fingers, bent backs, eyes too close to the paper, and 
 carelessness engendered by weariness. Any teacher knows that 
 even in a fifteen- or twenty-minute writing period constant watch- 
 fulness on her part is necessary to keep the children sitting in 
 
52 Educative Seat Work 
 
 good position, holding hand, arm, and pen correctly, using the 
 approved movement, and so on. But of what avail is it for her 
 to put forth every effort to form good writing habits during this 
 period if she then leaves the children to their own devices, with 
 written tasks which occupy several times the fifteen minutes of 
 supervised drill she is able to provide. The incorrect posture 
 and movements used at the seat period are likely to become ha- 
 bitual rather than the correct procedure enforced during the 
 class time, for the reason that they get more practice. 
 
 It is therefore desirable to keep written seat work down to a 
 very small minimum, and to make sure that, when it is used, 
 there is some strong motive making for care and effort to do it 
 well. Never assign work to be written only to be consigned to the 
 trash basket without having served any purpose whatever. 
 Children will often write just to be writing, or for amusement. 
 This is a form of play, and provision in the play equipment 
 should be made for this type of activity. When, however, the 
 teacher assigns it as a task, it is a very different matter, requir- 
 ing different handling and producing different results. Avoid, 
 in general, assigning any task for the seat work period which has 
 no excuse for being beyond a vague "You will need it some time." 
 
 With the qualifications already made, the following are sug- 
 gested types of written work for the between-recitation period. 
 
 Blackboard Work. 
 
 The first writing lessons should be at the blackboard. The 
 minimum amount of harm can result from unsupervised work 
 here, for the children stand, the movements they use are more 
 likely to be large, and, since they are not writing with pencils 
 on paper, they are not forming wrong habits of holding the 
 pencil or of movement. A little attention at the outset will suf- 
 fice to teach the children to hold the chalk with the thumb and 
 first two fingers, and to make large letters, and this in itself will 
 tend to prevent minute finger movement. 
 
 The supply of blackboards in the average country school is 
 far from adequate, but what is supplied frequently goes un- 
 
Educative Seat Work 53 
 
 used. Urge upon your trustees and patrons the importance of 
 an abundance of good slate board, and have from twelve to 
 twenty feet of it, especially for the little children, at the side or 
 rear of the room, so placed that they can reach the top of it 
 without tiptoeing. 
 
 At the board a variety of exercises, increasing in difficulty as 
 times goes on, are possible to the child. 
 
 1. He may write his own name. The teacher will set the copy 
 in a large, plain script. This the child may first "paint," that 
 is, trace over with colored crayon to get a clear idea of the form. 
 Then he makes with white crayon further copies below it. Later 
 he may erase the teacher's copy, and attempt to write from 
 memory, referring if necessary to a card with which he, and 
 every other child, should be very early provided, on which his 
 name is written. 
 
 2.. He may copy special letters which he finds particularly 
 troublesome. The teacher should from the first be on the watch 
 for these. For example, many children omit the long down 
 stroke in k, fastening the "crooked back" of the letter to the 
 up stroke from the preceding letter. Others make o with a left 
 to right movement instead of a right to left, and make a similar 
 error with a, while the number of parts of which n and m are 
 composed is a constant source of trouble. When such an error 
 is detected, the teacher should give special instruction . on the 
 point, and then when she is sure the pupil knows what to do, give 
 him blackboard practice, with the letter and with words he knows 
 in which the letter is found, till he does it right without thinking. 
 
 3. After the children have built sentences at their seats, using 
 cards with printed or written words and phrases, they may at- 
 tempt writing sentences at the board. These sentences will be 
 at first copies of the teacher's. Later they become in part or 
 entirely original. Encourage children to write on the board 
 "stories" for the class to read. Such stories may answer the 
 questions ' ' "What did you see on the way to school V or " What 
 pets have you at home?" or may describe a pet and its tricks, 
 or tell anything else in which the child thinks the others will be 
 
54 Educative Seat Work 
 
 interested. If from the very beginning a title is given to the 
 group of sentences he writes, these "stories" may soon come 
 to be valuable language work. Do not limit the child who is com- 
 posing a story to words the class has had. Encourage any 
 tendency to use new words which he may get for himself from 
 the older pupils or from books. Emphasize legibility and neat- 
 ness, "so that the class can read it easily." Sometimes a child 
 may copy on the board a Mother Goose rhyme or other verse 
 he has found and liked, that the others may read it too and 
 learn if they wish. 
 
 Writing at Desk or Table. 
 
 1. Copy work, of memory gems, short stories, or poems, may 
 be used in grades I to III, as far as it can be made of any real 
 interest to the child, or be given any relation to his life or needs. 
 Good work must be the only kind permitted, that is, the best work 
 the child can do. A specially good use for such copies is the 
 making of a collection of the words of songs learned in the grade, 
 as they are taken up. 
 
 2. In some schools it may be desirable that some of the written 
 language of the pupils should consist of dictated sentences, pre- 
 viously prepared by the pupils. In one first grade the following 
 procedure was found very helpful. The children each morning, 
 after they began to do any written work, were provided with 
 one sheet of paper, of uniform size and shape, and on this all 
 the written work of the day was done. After the fourth month 
 of school, part of this written work consisted of the writing, from 
 dictation, of very easy sentences. The material used in this case 
 was the year's reading. On the first page of the reader were 
 the words, ' ' This is Kate. ' ' The children knew the words ; they 
 had seen them in many connections. Their attention was called 
 to the capitalization and to the period, and they were directed 
 to copy the sentence twice and to try to remember just how it 
 looked. Then they folded their papers just below the copy so 
 that it was turned out of sight, and wrote the sentence 
 from memory. The paper was unfolded, and comparison made 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 55 
 
 /"A 
 
 Voluntary Copy with Decoration. 
 
 -y<? 
 
 5 >- 1 
 
 ...C^ 
 
 "^ 1 
 
 -J 
 
 
 
 . 1 
 
 ^^ .jw^w'^ * 
 
 Illustrated Dictation. First grade. 
 
56 Educative Seat Work 
 
 to see if the sentence was correctly written. If not, further study 
 was required. In the recitation period they wrote, with the copy 
 turned out of sight again. The paper was again unfolded and 
 thq teacher passed around the class and rapidly placed some 
 mark of approval on the correct work, both copy and dictation, 
 and perhaps showed to the class those papers which were notably 
 neat and well arranged. The succeeding pages of the reader 
 were, in this class, used day by day, only a few sentences being 
 taken at one time ; at first only one or two. 
 
 3. Decorated dictation exercises. The teacher who has any 
 blackboard space available, or who can make any substitute for 
 it, will find it better to give the children for study and later 
 dictation, sentences based on the special interest of the day or 
 month. For example : At Christmas she might write about Santa 
 Clause or stockings ; at Easter she might provide sentences about 
 eggs and rabbits; on March 17 the story of St. Patrick might 
 be used, and so on. Whatever the subject, the sentences for 
 study should be written on the blackboard in good form for the 
 children to study and to copy, and later should be dictated. 
 Good work may be stimulated by allowing the children who make 
 careful copies to use a special quality of paper, kept for the pur- 
 pose, for the dictation, and by encouraging the decoration of 
 the papers. Thus, the Christmas dictation may have a heading 
 of Christmas trees, drawn and colored, or cut in silhouette and 
 pasted; the Easter exercise may be decorated with rabbits; and 
 on St. Patrick's day clovers might form the basis of the design. 
 Whether this kind of work shall begin in the latter part of the 
 first year ©r be postponed tUl the second grade will depend 
 upon the advancement of the pupils, and their ability to write. 
 If it forces them into cramped and strained positions, it should 
 be postponed. In general, it will be wise to let the first grade 
 do as much of their writing as possible on the blackboard. 
 
 4. Short written compositions. These may be used in the third 
 grade, within limits. Avoid them, as seat work, if the pupils 
 work badly when unsupervised. Types of composition, for those 
 who can handle them, are reproductions of short stories, poems 
 
Educative Seat Work 57 
 
 written from memory, simple picture stories, or stories from 
 brief suggestions. If these can be assembled into a book of the 
 child's own making, for reading to the younger children at home, 
 for a gift to Mother, or to send to Grandmother, so much the 
 better. It may even suffice to collect them for the child's own 
 interest in reading. 
 
 5. Letters may also be used for this seat composition, if you 
 have a real correspondence going on between the children of 
 your school and those of some other school, preferably in an en- 
 tirely different part of the country. Have these letters try to 
 picture to the far-away child the conditions of this child's life 
 here, his home, school, work, play, etc. 
 
 VI 
 
 Number as Seat Work. 
 
 Since children very early show interest in numbering and 
 numbers, and find the mental activity involved in simple com- 
 putations enjoyable, part of the seat time should certainly be 
 given to number work. Two types of work should be recognized 
 and each given a place: (1) actual handling, counting, measur- 
 ing, numbering, to develop concepts of the real meaning of num- 
 ber-words, figures, and number facts, and (2) drill exercises with 
 figures. 
 
 Exercises Not Involving Figures. 
 
 1. Give the children spool boxes or envelopes containing a 
 variety of materials — sticks of varying lengths, square inches, ob- 
 longs, triangles, pegs, seeds, etc. Let them make objects of vari- 
 ous kinds by combining for each any two of the articles in their 
 envelopes. Extend this to combinations of three, four, etc., as the 
 children feel the limitations of the small number and wish greater 
 scope. Let the extension be sufficiently gradual to enable the 
 children to realize each number before they pass to the next, and 
 continue the work only so long as it seems to be profitable. 
 
58 Educative Seat Work 
 
 2. Square inches and pegs, or similar material, may be used 
 in a counting exercise. Let the children lay the squares to rep- 
 resent the desks in the school room, both as to their number and 
 position. Place a peg- to represent each child as he sits before 
 his desk. This may be elaborated by having differently colored 
 pegs to represent the boys and girls, or to represent the pupils 
 in the various classes. After laying these, the children may 
 draw the crude diagram they have constructed, to taSe home to 
 show their mothers how their school room looks, where they sit 
 and how many children there are in the school, in their class. 
 Should any pupil wish to use a round cardboard tablet for the 
 stove, or in any other way similarly distinguish various articles 
 of furniture, he should be permitted to do so. Such exercises 
 as these will give the pupils ideas of number and extent, though 
 they may not yet be able to name the special numbers in their 
 order. The teacher may realize on these exercises by having 
 the children, with their representations before them, tell how 
 many desks they made in their pictures, and calling on other 
 members of the class to compare this with the number they have 
 pictured, and with the number in the room. Should it become 
 apparent, as it may certainly be expected to, that some of the 
 children cannot count well enough to answer these questions, the 
 time is most favorable to suggest learning how to count, and a 
 number of definite lessons in counting may be given in the regu- 
 lar number period. 
 
 3. Give the children sticks of different lengths. Let them sort 
 them into piles with all of a length together. Let them invent 
 combinations using sticks of different lengths. For example, 
 with two-inch sticks and one-inch sticks make a ladder ; with six- 
 inch and two-inch sticks make a railroad, using the two-inch 
 sticks for ties and the six-inch ones for rails; make a fence, a 
 rake, etc. Count the sticks, count the inches, see how many inch 
 sticks it would take to make the same thing that is made with 
 one-six inch stick, etc. Many interesting objects that may be thus 
 constructed are pictured in the Industrial Primary Reader, pub- 
 lished by D. C. Heath & Co., New York. Price, 30 cents. 
 
Educative Seat Work 59 
 
 4. Group splints in consecutive piles, one in the first pile, two 
 in the second, three in the third, four in the fourth, etc. Simi- 
 larly arrange square inches, one in the first place, then two, etc. 
 
 5. Cut paper circles for making number cards like dominoes. 
 It will probably be best to provide the children with a cardboard 
 circle, or else with a spool to use as a pattern in drawing their 
 
 A Christmas Domino Card. 
 
 circles. Use dark paper for them. Then mount these circles on 
 cards, also prepared by the pupils, to show the vraious combina- 
 tions. Domino cards may also be made by printing with the 
 bottom of an ink bottle stopper. 
 
 6. Represent the same number not only by domino arrange- 
 ment of dots, but by groups of squares, or strips, or pictured 
 objects which may be cut silhouette fashion from a pattern, or cut 
 from magazines. Make in this fashion cards for a number game. 
 Thus six may be represented by six dots, by six squares, by six 
 strips, each about two inches long by half an inch wide, by six 
 apples, or rabbits, or stars, or flag stickers. The cards are used in 
 
60 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 a matching game. Several cards being made for each number up 
 to five or six or beyond, the game is to match all of a kind 
 together. Two or more children pla.y. The cards are turned face 
 down on the table. Each draws two. If they match, the player 
 
 A Pictured Number Fac-t. 
 
 lays them down beside him in a "book." If they do not match, 
 he plays one face up on the table. The next player, if he can 
 match this, takes it up and makes with it a "book" of his own. 
 If he cannot match, he, too, plays one face up on the table. The 
 next player then draws one card from the "bank" of face-down 
 cards. If he can match it with one on the table, he takes the two 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 61 
 
62 Educative Seat Work 
 
 and makes a "book" of them. If he cannot match it, he lays it 
 face up on the table. Thus in turn each player draws one and 
 either matches it, making a book, or plays it face up on the 
 table, where it may be matched by the next player. The game is 
 to get the greatest number of books. It may be played by two 
 children with as few as four cards each for the numbers from 
 one to six, or it may include numbers up to ten or twelve, and 
 more children may play. 
 
 Exercises Involving Figures. 
 
 1. Extend the cards for the number game described above to 
 include a card on which the numeral word is printed and one on 
 which the corresponding figure is printed or pasted. Figures cut 
 from large calendars are desirable for this purpose. Zest is 
 added to the game if these are counted as prize cards, the child 
 who captures them scoring two for the book containing them 
 instead of one, as for the other books. 
 
 2. For these, and other number games which may be devised, 
 have the children see how many arrangements they can make 
 of the units composing a single number. For instance, six may 
 be represented by two groups of three, by three groups of two, by 
 two in one group and four in another, and vice versa, five in one 
 group and one in another, and vice versa. 
 
 3. Group splints or squares as above and under each pile place 
 the correct figure, which may be cut from large calendar pads. 
 The children may be given one leaf from such a pad, and allowed 
 to cut it up into its component squares, which will provide the 
 figure representation of all numbers to thirty-one. These should 
 be kept in envelopes, and used as above indicated. 
 
 4. Provide the children with splints, squares, or other count- 
 ers, and word cards bearing the words and and are. Let them 
 tures. For example, Stamp-kraft pictures illustrating well-known 
 lay these on their desks to show the number facts they have been 
 studying, or others which they may be able to work out for them- 
 selves. Thus, the pupil may lay sticks and words as follows: 
 11 and III are |||||, |||| and | are |N!|, ||| and || are ||||l,-etc. 
 
Educative Seat Work 
 
 63 
 
 5. Lay sticks as above, and under each equality express the 
 same in figures, thus: 
 
 II and III are |||||- 
 2 and 3 are 5. 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 11 
 
 A Self-Teaching Drill Card. 
 
64 Educative Seat Work 
 
 6. Prepare cards for drill on combinations learned. Since the 
 usual arrangement of figures for addition is verti'^al, it is desir- 
 able that this arrangement be used in drill cards. To make drill 
 cards for the number 6, for example, use calendar figures. On 
 one card paste the figure 2 and below it the figure 4, below that, 
 under a line, paste the figure 6. Make similar cards for 4 and 2, 
 3 and 3, 1 and 5, 5 and 1. Then cut the answer off each card, 
 along a curved or bent line, so that only this answer will fit in 
 the space. Have the same curve or bend on each of the cards 
 whose answer is six. Make similar cards, for each of the numbers 
 as learned, with a distinguishing cut for each different sum. The 
 children fit sums into place until they have mastered the combi- 
 nations. 
 
 7. Make cards like these, but cut all answers off along a straight 
 line, so as to afford no clue to the answer. These are used to 
 test knowledge gained through practice with the cards described 
 in number 6. 
 
 8. Using only the squares from calendar pads, which should 
 be pasted on stiffer paper before being cut apart, children build 
 addition examples of their own, with correct answers. 
 
 9. Arrange the numbers cut from calendar pads in consecu- 
 tive order; begin with any of them, and arrange the others in 
 reverse order, counting backward ; arrange them so as to count 
 by twos, by threes, by fives. Use after oral lessons, in which the 
 children learn how to count in this way. 
 
 10. Make cardboard money for playing store. Use real pieces 
 of money for patterns. Either paste on each piece of toy money 
 the correct figure, cut from a calendar pad, or else write the 
 figures on them. The former will show more plainly. 
 
 11. Playing store, as described in a preceding section, affords 
 excellent number work. 
 
 12. Other number games may be used. Bean bag and Tit- 
 tat-toe are familiar examples, the child's score being the sum of 
 
Educative Seat Work 65 
 
 his throws or of the numbers on which his chalk rests in the circle 
 when the counting out rhyme is finished : 
 
 Tit-tat-toe, here I go ; 
 Hit or miss, I take this. 
 
 Daisy Number Game. 
 
 A seat game on a similar plan is the Daisy Game, devised by Miss 
 Lelia Richardson. A daisy is made on a card by pasting on a 
 large yellow center and white rays. The rays are folded length- 
 wise through the center, and only one-half is pasted down. On 
 each ray is written a number, which is concealed when the rays 
 are folded. Two rays are opened at random by the player, and 
 
66 Educative Seat Work 
 
 his score is the sum of the numbers they conceal. To prevent the 
 children's early learning the position of favored numbers, paste 
 the daisy on a circular card. 
 
 Excellent suggestions for number games, adaptable for either 
 class or seat work periods, are found in Harris and Waldo's 
 First Journeys in Numberland. 
 
 A Number Series. 
 It is very important that no piece of seat work be continued 
 after its use has passed, that is, after it has taught what it has 
 to teach. To that end the teacher will need to plan the sequence 
 of her seat work as carefully as she does her recitation period. 
 The following is an illustration of such a planned sequence : 
 
 Step. 1. Recognizing the number in a group, six being the 
 highest number. 
 
 Materials. Cards representing the numbers from 1 to 6, by 
 groups of various units — familiar objects, circles, squares, dashes, 
 as described above. Use the conventional domino arrangement 
 for the last three. 
 
 Exercise 1. Match all cards of the same number of objects. 
 Say the number to yourself. 
 
 Exercise 2. Make new cards to represent the same numbers for 
 use in games and further work, xising paper patterns to make 
 the units. 
 
 Step 2. To teach the figures. 
 
 Materials. Cards made by children or teacher, corresponding 
 figures cut from calendar pads, and a guide chart on the board 
 or on manila paper, showing side by side a domino arrangement 
 of dots and its corresponding figure. 
 
 Exercise 1. Match the number groups and the figures, re- 
 ferring to the blackboard or chart as necessary. Say the number 
 each time. 
 
 Exercise 2. Match and say the number without reference to 
 the chart 
 
 Test. A race in matching, in the class period. 
 
Educative Seat Work 67 
 
 Exercise 3. Match figures with groups of other objects, assem- 
 bled by the pupils. 
 
 Step 3. Sequence of numbers. 
 
 Exercise 1. Arrange groups of objects in counting order, first 
 one object or picture, then a pair of objects or pictures, then 
 three, and so on. 
 
 Exercise 2. Arrange figures in counting order. 
 
 Exercises 3 and 4. Arrange object groups and then figures in 
 reverse order. 
 
 Step 4. Learning sums within 6. 
 
 Exercise 1. Arrange counters to make the numbers from 1 to 
 6 in as many ways as possible. Squares, splints, grains of corn, 
 clothes pins on a rope stretched across the class room, beads on 
 a string, balls on the numeral frame, are some of the kinds of 
 objects that may be used for this ^rpose. 
 
 Exercise 2. Match figures to these groups of counters. 
 
 Eecitation. Tell what figures are used in each grouping, and 
 state the complete number fact. 
 
 Exercise 3. Sums within 6, with answers cut off on an irregu- 
 lar line, to be matched by shape. Line same for all like sums. 
 Match sums to proper cards. 
 
 Exercise 4. Same sums, answers cut off straight. Match. 
 
 Eecitation period. Test for accuracy and speed. Use a race 
 of some kind. 
 
 Step 5. Learning larger sums. 
 
 Material. Dominoes or domino cards whose two ends make 
 sums of 7 or more. 
 
 Exercise 1. Combine the two ends of the domino. Match with 
 the figure for the sum, first with the key, then without. 
 
 Exercise 2. Lay figure cards to make the sums. 
 
 Exercise 3. Make new sum cards for use in rapid class exer- 
 cises. 
 
 Exercises Involving Use of the Ruler. 
 1. Use sticks of varying lengths in designing borders for book- 
 lets. Many attractive designs may be worked out by parallel 
 or other arrangements of lines, and these are better represented 
 
68 
 
 Educative Seat Work 
 
 by sticks, which may be easily removed, if unsatisfactory, than 
 by drawing. After a satisfactory border has been thus planned 
 it may be drawn, and the ruler may be used to make the lines the 
 same length as the sticks. 
 
 Tilling for Doll House. A measuring and ruling project for first grade. 
 
 2. Make use of rulers in much of the construction work. Op- 
 portunity may be made for this in the seat work periods by 
 having the children, after there has been a folding lesson, inake 
 from memory the same object. 
 
 3. Enlist the aid of the second and third grade pupils in mak- 
 ing the sticks of various lengths that the first grade pupils need. 
 
Educative Seat Work 69 
 
 Let them use wheat, oat, or broom straw, and measure and cut 
 the required lengths. 
 
 4. Paper strips for weaving or for paper chains, and weather- 
 boarding for the doll house are other projects necessitating 
 measurement. At first make the strips for weaving or paper 
 chains an inch wide. When the demand arises for narrower ones 
 for greater beauty, teach the half inch. 
 
 5. Rule a calendar sheet for the month, making the squares for 
 the dates, etc., an inch on a side. Thus the calendar for any month 
 except February would necessarily be seven inches across and 
 five inches from top to bottom, besides the space needed for the 
 names of the days and the name of the month. This calendar 
 may be made at the beginning of the month, decorated with an 
 appropriate drawing or silhouette cutting, and a weather record 
 kept by appropriate pictures in each square. Later on, the 
 squares may be made only half an inch on a side, or it may be 
 found that the first grade children will need to use for theirs 
 an inch, while the second and third grade pupils may use the 
 half inch. 
 
 6. Draw a clock face, copying the position of the hands at the 
 time of drawing. After several lessons of this sort have others 
 in which the face is drawn from memory, to indicate different 
 hours. This may be continued at intervals all through the year, 
 as long as it seems profitable. These drawings may be mounted 
 on cards and used in a drill on telling time, the card being given 
 to the child who names it correctly, and the child who obtains the 
 largest number winning the game. Naturally, to be used in this 
 way, the drawing must be good. To this end, it will be well to teach 
 the children how to draw a circle with a pin and a paper radius, 
 and how to divide its circumference into twelfths. The follow- 
 ing directions are given for any teacher who wishes to know how 
 to make such a division exactly. Using the radius as a measure, 
 mark the circumference into six equal arcs, thus: Put a dot at 
 any point of the circumference, which we will call A. Lay one 
 end of the radius at A and move it until the other end just 
 touches the rim of the circle. This places B. In the same way 
 
70 Educative Seat Work 
 
 locate C, etc. This divides the circle into six equal ares, or 
 curves. Incidentally, the children will enjoy joining them to 
 make a six-pointed star. But to return to the clock. Divide each 
 of these six arcs into halves, and we have now twelve dots to aid 
 us in locating the twelve numbers on the clock face. These num- 
 bers may be cut from calendar pads and pasted on, or this op- 
 portunity may be utilized to give the children exercise in making 
 the Roman numerals up to XII. 
 
 7. Find how tall each child in the room is. 
 
 8. Other uses for measurement will arise from time to time, 
 as in making bean bags, sash curtains, towels for individual use, 
 dish cloths, etc., in garden work and in playing store. Throw 
 the responsibility for all measurement work on the youngest 
 children who can possibly do it, if necessary having an older 
 pupil cheek them up from time to time. 
 
 VII 
 
 Play as Between-Recitation Occupation. 
 
 It has already been stated that opportunity for free play 
 should definitely be provided, not only because of the impos- 
 sibility of holding little children to imposed requirements for 
 the whole of a six-hour day, but also because the opportunity it 
 aifords for the exercise of initiative and individual resourceful- 
 ness makes the free period of highest educational value. 
 
 Much of the occupation already suggested in preceding sec- 
 tions of this bulletin is of such a nature that children will volun- 
 tarily undertake such projects in their free time. Other occu- 
 pation which is more commonly thought of as play also has a 
 place here, and, although not especially directed by the teacher, 
 should be stimulated by her through the provision of suggestive 
 materials. In a home with an attic, an out of doors with trees 
 that are good to climb and swing on, brooks to sail boats in, a 
 barn with a hayloft, a supply of simple tools somewhere within 
 reach, and a small collection of good books, a family of children 
 can happily and profitably play all day. The contrast afforded 
 
Educative Seat Work 71 
 
 this ideal situation by the average country school is too obvious 
 to need elaborating. It is for the teacher to improve the con- 
 dition. 
 
 Out-of-Doors Play. 
 
 The children should be sent out of doors for as much of this 
 play time as the weather will permit. On clear days in the fall 
 fall, they should spend all of it out of doors, unless the play- 
 ground is absolutely unshaded and the heat is likely to be inju- 
 rious, and this is hardly probable, since the schoolhouse itself 
 is sure to afford some shade. 
 
 There should certainly be a sand pile on the playground for 
 the use of the little children, and, since there are likely to be 
 more cold days than warm ones during the session, it should be 
 in a warm, sunny spot, and one where water will not be likely to 
 collect after a rain. It is desirable that this sand be confined in 
 a sort of bin, to prevent washing away, and to secure a more level 
 surface than is possible in a pile. 
 
 If you have any strong trees with conveniently placed limbs.' 
 put up one or more swings, of stout rope, with the seat securely 
 fastened in, and neither too high from the ground nor of too long 
 possible swing. Arrange a seesaw, or, if you are afraid of that, 
 make a bouncing board — a stout but yielding plank, fastened 
 at each end to a stump or post about as high as an ordinary 
 chair. 
 
 Have the big boys make a hurdle for jumping, of two stoui 
 saplings, their lower ends deeply buried in the ground, and 
 their upper ends about five feet above ground. The side branches 
 of these saplings should be cut nearly, but not quite down to the 
 main stem, leaving a short projecting twig stump at equal 
 heights on each, across which a switch, or a light rope, may be 
 loosely laid to be jumped over. There should be several of these 
 projecting stumps, so as to make it possible to make high or 
 low jumps. 
 
 Keep in some convenient place near the door, a large, soft ball 
 which the children may be privileged to take with them when 
 they go out to play, and expected to return to its place when 
 
72 Educative Seat Work 
 
 they are through. Or, lacking this, have them make bean bags. 
 They should be allowed to make one each that they may dispose 
 of as they please, but in addition, it will be well to have them' 
 make a supply, of some distinctive material, to be kept in the 
 same place as the rubber ball, and used in the same way. 
 
 Other games may be provided if it is possible, such as croquet 
 and ring-toss, and the children themselves will introduce marbles, 
 tops, and jump ropes at their proper season. 
 
 Of course it is not necesssary that all this playground equip- 
 ment should be on hand from the first. It will probably be better 
 to introduce it gradually, giving the children opportunity to 
 find the possibilities of one thing before presenting another. 
 The teacher will need to help the children get into the use of 
 some unfamiliar equipment, but she should avoid attempting to 
 force any of it upon them. 
 
 Other outdoor amusements, too, she may need to introduce 
 to them — the making of a playhouse in some sheltered cosy 
 Corner, laying off play farms, with gardens and orchards, and 
 caring for them, games such as blind man's bluff, drop the hand- 
 kerchief, the mulberry bush, puss in the corner, hide the switch, 
 hide and seek, prisoner's base, and various singing games. 
 
 Perhaps the children will play these so noisily as to hamper 
 the work of those who are indoors; if so, they will need to be 
 told of it, and to make an effort to control the noise. Only if 
 they seem to find it impossible to do so should such games be 
 prohibited, and even then it will be well to admit them to pro- 
 bation periods, after a sufficiently long deprivation to impress 
 the point, that they may make a further effort to gain the self- 
 control they need. This very act of checking their own natural 
 inclination to loud demonstrations is very educative and valu- 
 able, and the children should not be deprived of the benefit of it. 
 
 Indoor Games and Play Equipment. 
 
 Though most of the days of the session will be such that the 
 
 children can play out of doors there will be some in which cold 
 
 or wet will make it necessary that they stay in the house. For 
 
 such days house games should be provided, and the children 
 
Educative Seat Work 73 
 
 taught the necessity of playing quietly, for the sake of the others. 
 If you can screen off a corner of the school room where they may 
 play out of sight of the children who might thereby be distracted 
 from their work, so much the better. Of course, unless they can 
 play quietly behind the screen, they will have to be deprived of 
 the privilege, just as may be necessary in the case of outdoor 
 games; but, again, they should be given further opportunity to 
 demonstrate growth in control. 
 
 Besides games already suggested in preceding sections, a few 
 others may be specified here. 
 
 1. Cut-up pictures are good. At first use very simple ones, 
 cut into strips of equal size and shape. The larger children may 
 make such games themselves. Large pictures, such as are found 
 on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, The Woman's Home 
 Gom'panion, etc., may be pasted flat on carboard ruled and cut 
 into strips or squares. After the little folks have some skill in 
 putting these simple pictures together, more difficult cuts may be 
 used. Keep all the pieces of one picture in an envelope, with 
 the name of the picture on the back and with each piece marked 
 with an identifying number, which should also appear on the 
 envelope. 
 
 2. Building blocks are both educative and amusing. 
 
 3. Dominoes afford valuable training. The little children may 
 be taught the simplest form of the game, which consists in getting 
 rid of those one holds by matching ends. This gives much exer- 
 cise ia visualizing numbers. 
 
 4. A checker board and men will provide material for a game 
 that the smallest child can play, and in which the oldest man can 
 find new possibilities. 
 
 5. Jaekstraws, logomachy, anagrams, lotto, and other familiar 
 home games are also desirable. 
 
 6. Scissors should be available for any children that enjoy 
 cutting out and dressing paper dolls. By asking for magazines 
 from the various homes, it will be quite possible to allow the 
 children to keep at least a considerable part of those dolls which 
 they wish to cut out. 
 
74 Educative Seat Work 
 
 7. Pencils and paper should be at hand for such games as tit- 
 tat-toe, or the game of joining dots into squares. 
 
 8. Doll dressing, scrapbook making, drawing, painting, etc., all 
 afford suitable occupation for these times. There should be the 
 collection of materials for individual invention and construction, 
 for the benefit of children who have ideas for the sand table or 
 doll house that they wish to work out. It will be well to keep 
 certain materials sacred to just such times as these, so that when 
 it is necessary for the children to stay in the house, the occupa- 
 tion that is available may have the charm of novelty. 
 
 9. Many children will want to spend their play period looking 
 at picture books or reading, and provision should be made for 
 this, as described in a preceding section. 
 
 Possible Objections Considered. 
 Objection I. Lack of Material. 
 
 There may seem to be two objections to such plans as these — 
 lack of material, and danger of disputes. The lack of material 
 may be supplied in part by the co-operative efforts of the 
 children; the contribution of pictures, pretty cloth for sewing, 
 bright papers for weaving or folding, magazines to cut up, etc., 
 may be offered by any of the pupils as their share in the general 
 good. If there is no library, any children who have picture or 
 story books may contribute them to a general loan library, but 
 there should be an understanding with the child's parents that 
 there is likely to be considerable legitimate wear and tear on any 
 book so lent. A good supply of games may be bought for a dol- 
 lar; the children may furnish their own pencils and paper, if 
 necessary. Scissors may be brought from home, but it is more 
 satisfactory to have a school supply, and if they are not a part 
 of the room's equipment, they should be bought with part of 
 the proceeds of the first money-making enterprise the school en- 
 gages in. The co-operation of the Patron's League should be 
 enlisted if the school board will not make the needed provisions, 
 but the school board should be first given an opportunity to do 
 so, for there is no part of the school work that has greater educa- 
 tional possibilities than this free time, provided a reasonably ade- 
 
Educative Seat Work 75 
 
 quate equipment is available. In any ease, don't fail to get 
 together some of these materials, even if some of the others must 
 wait until a more favorable time for their purchase. 
 
 Objection II. Danger of Dispute. 
 
 There is no doubt there will be danger of dispute among the 
 children who are playing together. Often two of them will 
 want the same game, the same materials, the same paper doll. 
 From the very beginning there will have to be an understanding 
 that whenever such a disagreement occurs, if it cannot be 
 amicably settled, the object of dispute must be laid aside and 
 used by neither until there shall be an opportunity to refer the 
 matter to the teacher or some other referee who may be decided 
 upon. And on no consideration must the reciting classes be 
 interrupted on account of any dispute. Undoubtedly there will 
 be difficulties of one kind or another connected with free play 
 in the house, but in the overcoming of these difficulties is devel- 
 opment for the pupils, and they should not be deprived of this 
 development because of the difficulties. 
 
 Objection III. Distraction of Older Pupils. 
 
 Nor should the primary grades be deprived of these opportu- 
 nities because of the danger of distracting the attention of the 
 older pupils from their work. This reason is often urged against 
 all attractive primary work in multi-graded schools. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, after the novelty wears off, the older children will pay 
 no more attention to the primary occupations than they do to 
 their small sisters' or brothers' play at home. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Suggestions for Using the Various Types of Seat Work. 
 Desiraiility of Relation ietween the Seat Work and Special 
 
 Interests. 
 
 The suggestions for seat work will doubtless suggest others to 
 the resourceful teacher. It should be stated that much depends 
 upon the way in which such exercises as these are used. There 
 
76 Educative Seat Work 
 
 should be a distinct effort on the part of the teacher to relate all 
 the school work to some real thing in which the children are 
 interested, and the seat work, being so important a part of the 
 school work, should certainly express or gratify such an interest. 
 For example, toy rakes and spades should be made in con- 
 nection with some effort to share in or express the garden inter- 
 est. The doll house should be furnished as a part of the study of 
 the home. Paper chains are particularly appropriate to Christ- 
 mas time, when the decoration of the tree is the central interest. 
 Sometimes each child may be allowed to decorate a miniature 
 tree of his own, to take home, perhaps to his mother, perhaps to 
 the baby of the family. Such individual trees, which, of course 
 will be tiny, may be set in tin cans or small boxes, covered with 
 paper, which may or may not be decorated with a simple sten- 
 ciled border, and decorated with chains, stars, lanterns, etc., of 
 the child's own making, and hung with the gifts he makes for 
 his own people. Other chains may be made in the fall, when 
 there are dogwood and other berries to add to their beauty, and 
 worn home in triumphant pride. Just when or how each kind 
 of work is to be used must be decided by the individual teacher 
 with reference to her pupils' needs. 
 
 Interests Likely to Be Conspicuous in Each Month, with 
 Suggestions. 
 
 It may, however, be helpful to recapitulate here the various 
 interests that are likely to be dominant at different times of the 
 year, and to select some relation of seat work thereto. 
 
 October interests: The county fair, the State fair, the corn 
 harvest, fall planting, Columbus day (October 12), the coloring 
 leaves, caterpillars seeking a safe place for the winter, bird 
 migration, Hallowe'en, general home activities. 
 
 October suggestions: A corn chart; eornshuek mats and 
 baskets; paper cutting of growing corn and the story of Hia- 
 watha and Mondamin ; the farm yard shown on the sand table 
 
 bam, pigpen, hen house, yards and fences; the cornfield also 
 shown on the sand table ; chains of red and yellow corn ; leaf col- 
 
Educative Seat Work 77 
 
 lections and leaf booklets; cuttings of birds, caterpillars, and 
 cocoons, as observed ; coloring of outline pictures of birds ; a fall 
 booklet, recording weather and nature changes, and including 
 a calendar; a silk chart, if the caterpillars spin in the school 
 room; preparation of exhibits for the fair; making jaek-o- 
 lanterns of pumpkins or squash; cutting brownies of paper; 
 illustrating the story of how the Indians were frightened by a 
 jack-o '-lantern ; making a Columbus poster ; drawing with colored 
 crayons the beautiful autumn leaves; illustrating one or two 
 pretty fall memory gems. 
 
 November interests: Trees' winter preparation, hard frosts, 
 fall plowing and planting; November 11, date of the armistice 
 signing; Thanksgiving; tobacco season; human preparation for 
 winter. 
 
 November suggestions : A wheat chart ; cuttings to illustrate 
 "The Little Red Hen;" illustration of same in Grades II or 
 III ; collection, drawing, and measurement of year 's growth of 
 twigs of different trees; wool chart; doll house begun; Pilgrim 
 settlement shown on the sand table, some scenes from soldier 
 life in the great war ; and perhaps some Indian home life ; farm- 
 ing implements cut or constructed ; chains of berries ; booklets 
 and calendar, as in preceding month ; flags of the United States 
 and the great Allies ; Thanksgiving postcards. 
 
 December interests: Christmas; winter birds; shortest day in 
 the year; probably the first snowfall. 
 
 December suggestions: Weather record and calendar, made 
 into a Christmas booklet; Christmas gifts; frieze for the black- 
 board; cutting snow crystals; decorations for the Christmas 
 tree — popcorn chains, paper chains, stars, lanterns, candy 
 boxes, cornucopias made of woven paper, etc. ; candles for the 
 Christmas tree; feeding the birds; dressing a Christmas tree 
 for the birds; further work on the doll house, if time permit; 
 Christmas cards, postcards, and calendars. 
 
 January interests : New Year ; getting ice ; real snowfall ; skat- 
 ing and coasting; Lee's and Jackson's birthdays. 
 
 January suggestions : Decorated calendars ; New Year post- 
 
78 Educative Seat Work 
 
 cards; sleds of paper or other materials for the doll house or 
 sand table ; cuttings of skating and coasting scenes ; Eskimo life 
 on the sand table or shown in posters ; making Confederate flags, 
 either by drawing and coloring, cutting and pasting, or, as the 
 real flags were made, cutting and sewing cloth ; rugs and quilts 
 for the doll house; "thank you" letters for Christmas gifts. 
 
 February interests : Shortest month in the year ; ' ' Ground-hog 
 Day;" St. Valentine's Day; "Washington's and Lincoln's birth- 
 days ; Longfellow 's birthday ; return of the robins, swelling buds ; 
 marbles. 
 
 February suggestions: Calendar and weather record kept "to 
 see if the ground-hog story is so ; " valentines ; valentine postals ; 
 United States flags, both in the original form and as we have it 
 now; further Indian study and related sand-table work; begin- 
 ning of spring bird records ; drawing and coloring of bird pic- 
 tures and buds; buds in water, drawn from week to week to 
 show development; paper cuttings to illustrate the stories of 
 Washington; marble bags. 
 
 March interests: Wind, kites, early flowers, equinox; prepa- 
 rations for Easter; fruit blossoms; piping of frogs and toads; 
 emerging of butterflies or moths from cocoons and chrysalids 
 kept over winter ; late frosts ; seed sowing in the house or cold 
 frame. 
 
 March suggestions : Copy and illustrate simple wind poems ; 
 make simple kites ; decorate Easter eggs ; Easter postcards ; cal- 
 endar and weather record, showing especially length of days and 
 nights, sudden changes in temperature and forces and direction 
 of the wind ; begin flower collection ; cut and draw early spring 
 flowers ; make and care for egg-shell gardens ; begin work in the 
 school garden; record date of fruit blossoms, and keep to add 
 date of leafing later, make a frog poster from frog cuttings 
 made by the whole class; record in some way the butterfly and 
 moth developments — drawings, paintings, cuttings, simple lan- 
 guage work, etc. ; spring clothes for the dolls ; a frieze of tulips 
 or some equally easily cut spring flower for the blackboard; 
 booklets of work for exhibition at the close of school, for those 
 which will close late in March or early in April. 
 
Educative Seat Work 79 
 
 April interests: April showers; spring planting, etc.; abun- 
 dance and variety of flowers ; nesting of birds ; preparation for 
 May Day ; spring house cleaning ; newly-hatched chickens ; and 
 perhaps Easter and the closing of school. (Listed also in March, 
 for some years or some schools.) 
 
 April suggestions : Weather record kept to show April 's prone- 
 ness to showers ; drawings and cuttings illustrating April weather 
 and other seasonal conditions ; flower booklet continued ; making 
 of bird boxes; spring cleaning in the doll house, with whatever 
 manufacture of new furniture, etc., may be necessary; May 
 baskets ; the poultry yard constructed on the sand table ; book- 
 lets of work for exhibition on the closing day of school. 
 
 Technique of Handling Seat Work. 
 
 From day to day, the same elements will enter into the occu- 
 pation. There will all through the year be some construction 
 work requiring the use of scissors, ruler, paper, needle and 
 thread, cloth, etc. There will continue to be work with cards 
 involving the same general features of matching, cutting, and 
 pasting. There will be continual use of library books. 
 
 Time will be saved in the end if it is taken in the early days of 
 school to initiate good habits of procedure with all these mate- 
 rials. Are you going to use monitors? Then use them from the 
 beginning, be clear as to their duties and privileges, make them 
 clear to all the children, and follow consistently the procedure 
 you have together agreed on, unless it proves defective, when it 
 is well to call the children together to consider why it has failed 
 and how to remedy it, and to set up a new procedure in its 
 place. By careful planning in the first place you can avoid doing 
 this very often. 
 
 Are you going to allow children to go freely to cases for mate- 
 rial? Then show where it is kept and how, and work out with 
 the children the most courteous and considerate and economical 
 way of getting it out and putting it back, and stick to it when 
 once worked out. 
 Are you going to give certain directions on the blackboard each 
 
80 Educative Seat Work 
 
 day? Then have a regular portion of the blackboard for each 
 class's assignment, and habituate them to turn there for direc- 
 tions without any question or parley. 
 
 Is there material that has to be passed frequently ? Then have 
 it kept in easily-handled boxes or big envelopes, and plainly 
 labeled. If you put the same number or other identification mark 
 on the outside of each envelope or box and on each article or 
 piece it contains, you will expedite returning lost materials to 
 their proper places. 
 
 Have you children who work faster than others and for whom 
 you want to provide an additional amount of required work? 
 Then have an agreed upon place, on a table, in a cabinet, or else- 
 where, where directions and material for such work are kept. 
 
 Will your children need to ask questions of you or others? 
 Then have an understanding as to the amount of communica- 
 tion that is desirable, from the standpoint of the interruptions, 
 of the other person's work the result; and provide between two 
 recitations, every half -hour or hour of the day from three to five 
 minutes when you can answer miscellaneous questions. Do not 
 as a usual thing allow interruptions of a reciting class by ques- 
 tions addressed to you by a pupil working at his seat. 
 
 Are you to take the first day of school to read out the rules 
 for all this procedure and get it started? Most surely not. But 
 as each new kind of work is instituted, take time to give the 
 pupils help in going about it in the best way for all concerned. 
 Don't make rules, but discuss the matter with the children, get 
 suggestions from them, and in the group decide on the best pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 Finally, remember that the end of all this, as of all school 
 work, is education of the children, making them wiser, better, 
 more skilful, more social human beings than before. Don 't center 
 your attention on the beauty or show-worthiness of the pupils' 
 products, but on the growth that comes to the pupils from their 
 production, and on the happy, healthy, self-active, self-eon- 
 trolled boys and girls that they increasingly become. 
 
Oc&yiUl U ui w»t 
 
 Makers 
 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 FAT. JAN. 21, 1908 
 
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