P

Papier Maché Maps

F. MAY ROGERS

APIER maché maps, that is, maps of the relief outline of a continent or country which is to be studied, give a child an accurate conception of the physical geography of that country. The making of papier maché maps pleases a child because it appeals to his creative instinct. It enables him to retain a distinct impression of the outlines and formation of a country, because he has seen those outlines grow and form under the touch of his own hand. Therefore it is an excellent aid in teaching geography. It may be used for children of eight years of age, or, in its more intricate forms, for older children.

To make the papier maché, get twenty or thirty white blotters, and about ten cents worth of white, dry glue. Have the children shred the blotters as finely as possible. Take enough of these shredded blotters to fill a two quart pail, pour boiling water over it, and let it stand for two days. Then pour the soaked blotters into a large basin, and knead thoroughly. Replace in the bucket, and add the glue, and enough water to cover the paper pulp. Let soak for two days. Repeat the kneading process. The pulp should now be of the proper consistency for moulding. If it is too dry add more water. If it is too wet, let it drain awhile. This amount is sufficient for a class of fifteen pupils. It may be left to stand for several days and used as wanted.

At first it is wise to begin with only a few pupils, as it needs personal superintendence, until the pupil understands moulding the pulp. In the following discussion, we will take, for the continent to be studied, North America; and give the lesson as taught to pupils eight to ten years old.

In the lesson actually given, the continent, North America, had been studied in regard to position, drainage, and location of mountains, according to lessons in "Frye's Primary Geography." The pupils then drew on heavy glazed paper, an outline map of North America. This was the afternoon drawing lesson.

That evening ten enthusiastic pupils willingly remained after school was dismissed. They cut out the outline map, previously drawn. They laid this paper shape of North America on some old slates which had been slightly coated

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with lard (the lard prevents the gluey mass from sticking to the slate).

Then on each paper form was placed a lump of the moist papier maché. The children moulded this evenly over the paper forms, taking care not to let any extend beyond the paper form, as this would spoil the outline. Then with more paper pulp, the mountains were placed and pinched into proper shape and position, and a depression was made for the Mississippi valley. The pictured map was placed before the children that they might get the right location for mountains and valleys.

This ended the work for the evening and the slates were placed away to dry- a process requiring some two weeks. This phase of the work was somewhat sticky and mussy, but what child does not like just such work, from mud-pie time to clay moulding?

When the maps were thoroughly dried, the rivers were traced in with a broad, blunt pen. This lesson included a talk on the river systems of North America and enabled the children to see how the elevation or depression of the land determines the direction of a river.

The broad, fertile lands of the Mississippi valley were given a slight coating with green water color (green chalk may be used (and the mountain tops were touched with brown to indicate the rugged character of the mountains and to recall to the children's minds the valuable deposit of minerals in which our mountains are so rich.

The maps were then loosened at the edge with a knife, and lifted from the slate. They were found to be perfectly hard, and to retain all elevations or depressions which the little fingers have given them. In thickness the maps were fromto of an inch, according to the nature of the land.

These papier maché maps were then glued to squares of dark green pasteboard, 16 x 14 inches in size, and the maps were finished.

If desired, the maps may be mounted on blue pasteboard, resembling the tint of the ocean, and the names of the adjacent oceans lettered upon them. And, for older pupils, the degrees of latitude and longitude may be marked upon them. One little girl, more ambitious than the rest, made a pulp of blue blotters and, in a wash-bowl, moulded a half sphere. When this was dry, she mounted on its rounded surface, a

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thin map of North and South America in white papier maché. She then mounted the finished hemisphere on a square of white cardboard.

These maps have been used by the writer in connection with geographical work for the past five years. They have been found to aid the child in remembering many facts concerning a continent. Teachers in the higher grades say the children take more interest in physical geography from this slight introduction to it.

The maps, if placed on the wall of a school-room, form a decoration, to which the pupils point with pride as being their own handiwork. And, on a dull day, they are always ready to point out the mountains and rivers to the B's, who are "too little to make maps," but who anticipate being able to make them next year, if they work hard, and get "commoted" into the "A" class.

The Winter Winds

High and low

The winter winds blow!

They fill the hollows with drifts of snow; And sweep on the hill a pathway

clear;

They hurry the children along to

school,

And whistle a song for the happy

New Year.-Sel.

Who was Disciplined?

EMILY FREIBERGER, Chicago

Timmie was never happy unless he was sharing a thought with one of his neighbors, and the attentive attitude of his little friends showed they were not unwilling listeners. We all have met with such pupils, and have dealt with them wisely and otherwisely. They are not naughty. It is of such as these that fond mothers say, "He doesn't mean to do wrong. He is nervous, though, just like his father." But listen to the teacher's version. "He annoys all his neighbors and prevents them from attending properly to their studies." This, with dignity to the mother. The truth of the matter is, the neighbors are not at all annoyed, but are enjoying themselves. And in her heart the teacher often loves this kind of pupil, just as I did Timmie. I liked him when I had to remonstrate with him and felt repaid for my trouble when he looked up at me with his beautiful brown eyes, and said sweetly, "I always forget."

But his little memory failed him so often, that I felt I must take more strenuous measures for the sake of the little, annoyed (?) neighbors. So, after all the gentle and other speeches, glances and reminders, lost their power, I thought to myself, "Try something else. You have appealed to his mind and to his heart. In vain. Perhaps the road to this little man's good behavior might be reached by way of his stomach." He looked well fed. So, one afternoon Timmie and I had a conference. Just a friendly talk we had, there in that big, empty room, where so many promises had been made. (Just imagine if teachers could sue their pupils for breach of promise!) So there we sat, we two, and talked of many things in a friendly way, and as may be supposed, I spoke of Timmie's failing. He confessed that he really didn't mean to whisper, that he made up his mind every day that he "would be good." One little confidence invited another, and finally he told me just what I had been leading up to, he loved pie! And his folks had it for dessert almost every evening. Then I said, "Timmie, do you know that the pie you like so much might help you to be a good boy?" He didn't quite grasp the idea, and I must say I wasn't over confident myself. We talked the matter over, and we decided he was to refuse pie that night at dinner, hoping the great sacrifice would help him to remember his promises to himself. As Emmy Lou would have said, we were on "intimate " terms, when he said sweetly, "I'll do it. Good-night."

I had taught too long to think I had gained a great victory, but I had taught long enough to know that it is often the unexpected that happens in the school-room as well as elsewhere.

When I saw him enter the room the next morning, I was delighted. No one but a teacher knows how it feels to make such a conquest. For in that chubby little face, in those brown eyes, and in that pretty mouth, I read selfdenial, self-communion, determination, and victory! He came, I saw, he had conquered. I made no remarks, and better still, he made none. Nine o'clock, ten, eleven, and Timmie's conduct was ideal.

At last, in a weak moment, I could resist the temptation no longer; I must speak to him. Calling him to my side and putting my hand proudly and lovingly upon the little hero's shoulder, I said, "Good for you, Timmie! You will be a soldier some day!" I felt he had not quite caught the drift of my speech. But no matter. I was accustomed to that. All teachers are. So I made another more to the point. "Did you eat any pie last night?"

We didn't have any."

"What did you have for desert?"

"Peaches."

"Did you eat any ?”.

"No, ma'am."

"What did your mother say ?"

"Oh, I forgot all about it." This with a frightened air. "Then why didn't you eat the peaches?"

With a deep sigh, that in a way recalled his heavy dinner of the night before, he announced:

"I was so full, I couldn't eat another thing!"

"The Story of a Sandpile"

A. M.

(I owe the title of the following paper in part to Dr. Hall, whose article, "The Story of a Sand-pile," first suggested the possibilities of sand in the school-room, and in part to Dr. George Vincent. In one of his lectures, the latter brought forward the idea of studying certain groups of closely associated children for the purpose of observing the social relations existing among them and noting the growth of what he called a "group ideal," or the composite conscience and ethics of a community. I have been happy in watching the progress of the free play of the pupils in my room, and have seen quite different things than are observed during work time.)

There have been no other suggestions or directions given at any time, and the following results have been outgrowths of the children's free play.

During the first week they seemed fascinated by the mere feeling of the dry sand. They buried their hands and excitedly rescued them, dug holes, made conical piles, let handfuls slip through their fingers, raked and patted to their hearts' content; each for himself and evidently for the pleasurable sensation of the moment.

On the fifth day, they asked for water to sprinkle on the sand "so it would pack." Every day thereafter it has been moistened with hot or warm water, and interesting times have ensued.

During the second week, a study of the Northland being in progress, every child seemed moved to build an "Eskimo house." At first simple, solid hemispheres satisfied all.

were interested. A few days and these level expanses represented various things; several girls suggested they were "making bread," "rolling sugar," etc., as they pushed the sand back and forth. . The boys made lawns and gardens.

It was

very small, owing to the cold, and for the first time the children united efforts and worked toward a common end. The first day, the sand was levelled from end to end of the box, and made into one continuous ridge with several tunnels underneath, dug by twos of children. (Fig. 4.) On Tuesday this embankment was named a "railroad track." packed more solidly, the number of tunnels was lessened, and two terminal stations were made. On Wednesday a more elaborate bridge was made over one of the tunnels. (Fig. 5). The rulers were used only as tools in the making of this railroad, its stations, sloping banks, etc. At first mere marks in the sand stood for rails, but on Wednesday

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Fig. 1

These were built and torn down over and over again. Soon followed an attempt to hollow out these mounds and to make ditches and then short tunnels from the openings. All this time each child had worked only for himself, but toward the close of this second week, two children were several times observed working together and toward a common end. At this time, too, the children first invited the teacher to join their play. After that she occasionally did so, but took pains to follow rather than lead in any way. (Fig. 1.)

During the third and fourth weeks the pupils worked in groups of from two to four, one among whom was usually recognized as leader, or director.

Seeming meaningless structures evolved at this stage, still called "Eskimo houses," but with four or five openings, steps leading to the top of the mounds, tunnels extending from one house to another, etc. (Fig. 2.)

In the fifth week, the children felt for the first time the need of implements other than their chubby hands. A few inch-wide foot rulers were given. With these at first they merely pushed sand back and forth, making flat spaces in

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Fig. 4

someone suggested using rulers for rails. They were put, edge up, in the track, but there were not enough, neither would they fit the curve over the center bridge. So the teacher was asked for "something to use for rails." A bunch of uncolored weaving-splints was supplied. (Fig. 6.) The teacher wondered what would come next, and the "next" was soon in coming.

The children, during the month of February, had listened to the story of Cedric and how he became a knight, and had been singing and dramatizing Gaynor's song of "The Five

covered with sand. The supply of rulers being soon exhausted, and demands for "something for a roof" being on the increase, the children were sent to the supply of old boxes and boards in the basement, bringing back in triumph several oblong boards a foot in width and perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches long.

The children now worked chiefly in groups of from four to seven. The whole school took part in the work, but not all at one time. Some pupils came earlier one day and others another, just as it happened. Very rarely a child would come into the room early and still not choose to go to the sand-table; but usually it acted like a magnet.

When towers were added to the castles, sand alone was not satisfactory. Rulers were placed vertically and sand packed around them; this was an improvement, but not all

that the children held as ideal.

One day Guy, aged seven, spied the cones, prisms, cylinders, etc., which for weeks had rested on the window-sill opposite. These were often used in school work, but no one ever seemed, before this, to feel their possibilities. The inspiration spread, and now the table bristles with towers.

anything previously built. Next, the children were observed. clearing spaces, levelling and packing the sand very near the bottom of the box, and starting their castles in a very different way. They now built from the foundation upwards, and made strong, high walls, but failed when they tried to close over the open space between walls with mere sand.

Once more rulers came into use as material, and were placed side by side across the top and were then

Fig. 7

At the present date (March), the castles have large light rooms within them, square corners (fairly so), surrounding walls and moats, roads leading from castle to castle, well protected courtyards, etc. (Fig. 7.)

Jan., 1904

How the Black Sheep Turned

White

ELEANOR JOLLIE

BOBBY! Bobby! what else is there left for you to do?" sighed Miss B. to herself, as she watched Bobby Jones mopping up the ink from his overturned ink well. That ink well was the last straw. Never was there a more splendid example of a person who left undone those things which he ought to have done, or did those things which he ought not to have done, than Robert Henry Jones.

Bobby had started and gone through with a fight before school that morning, and had come off victorious, leaving his enemy with a bleeding nose and blackened eye.

He had stolen a tempting apple from a little girl's desk, and had eaten it under her very eyes. Afterwards, he had taken the seeds from the core, and laying them one by one on his desk, had snapped them at the little girl, with his thumb and forefinger, thus adding insult to injury.

He had held a class in slang, at recess, so that by noontime he had a number of followers, who were fast becoming proficient in the subject studied.

He had taught a new game, which he called, “Run, Slide, and Roll in the Dirt," a most appropriate name.

He had lost his place in the reader, and had had his number work wrong from start to finish.

He had made the school-room a thing of life, by whispering loudly between his periods of gum chewing.

And now, for the second time that day, a black stream of ink was slowly trickling down the desk and on to the carefully kept floor.

cleaned up that ink "Robert Jones, as soon as you have you may go into the dressing-room and stay until after school," said Miss B., in an awful tone.

"Yes'm," said Bobby, turning his wicked looking eyes toward Miss B. for a moment, and then returning to his agreeable task. There is no use for me to deny the fact that the task of cleaning up the ink was a most pleasant one to Bobby. He liked to watch the ink slowly turn the wet sponge black, and then the sponge turn white again by squeezing it over the basin.

Poor little ill-bred, ill-clothed, ill-fed Bobby, the one black sheep in Miss B's. fold.

When he had come to school, he had entered a blissful garden of white lambs.

The little girls at Miss B's. school wore dainty dresses; and bows, like great gay butterflies, fluttered a-top of well kept hair. The little boys of the same school looked like tiny fashion plates.

"I'm coming to school," he had said, shortly, on the first morning. "Where'll I put my hat?" And thus Bobby was gathered into the "Fold."

for

When Bobby entered by the door that day, Peace Miss B., at least flew out of the window. It never occurred to Bobby that he should obey. He had never obeyed anyone in his life. Why should he begin now?" "Only sissies like them mind," he said, one day, with a backward jerk of his thumb, when Miss B. remonstrated with him.

And the "Lambs"? They were wild with delight and admiration. Anything so delightfully out of the common had never before come within their ranges of vision. By unspoken but unanimous consent he was chosen as their leader.

Bobby's walk, Bobby's wink, Bobby's very way of talking, became the fashion. The "Lambs" were following the And the "Black Sheep" over the wall, into pastures new. worst part of it was that the new pasture contained, according to the "Lamb's" verdict, most pleasing fruit. Either the Clearly one of two things must happen. "Black Sheep" must be turned white, or the "Lambs" would turn black.

Now Miss B. was a good shepherd, and had no intention of having a field of black sheep, so she found herself con

"Seven going on eight."

"Let me see, isn't your birthday on the thirteenth of this month?" "Yes'm.

I was born.

you see."

Granny said it was an unlucky day for me when That's how I remember it's on the thirteenth,

Oh, the pity of it!

What a way to remember the date of one's birthday? Unlucky because one is born; born into a world filled with beauty and love, and yet to taste not even the crumbs!

The tears, which lay so close to Miss B's. eyes, blotted out the events of the day, and in their place came the picture of a little ragged boy, hungering for love.

"Bobby, will you go and help Miss A. this morning? She wants some papers folded and cut.”

'Now, children," said Miss B. to the "Lambs," as soon as Bobby had gone, "how would you like to have a surprise party on Bobby Jones? It is his birthday, day after to-morrow. We will invite Miss A's. room in, and have a real party." How would they like it? No need to ask when the dancing eyes answered.

While Bobby was gone from the room they had written the invitations to Miss A's. pupils. Tiny white hearts, for it was February, with words written in red ink. Rather crooked writing, perhaps, but what of that? for didn't every word breathe the word Love; love for Bobby, the little "Black Sheep"?

A birthday, of course, meant presents, and Miss B. told "Have the children to buy things that a boy would like.

the paper in which they are wrapped white, and the string pink," said Miss B., "and above all things, don't let Bobby know."

At three o'clock on February thirteenth Bobby was sent on an errand.

Miss B. wondered if it ever entered Bobby's little 'snarley head how many times he was sent on errands during those days.

As soon as Bobby had gone the room began "to blossom as the rose." Books were put away, blackboards cleared, a bouquet of pinks appeared on Miss B's. desk, and mysterious pink-tied, white bundles were placed at Bobby's seat.

The number table was covered with a white cloth, and punch bowl of very sweet lemonade were placed at either end. Little heart-shaped frosted cakes were scattered over the table, while-ah! king of the feast-a large birthday cake, bearing the initials "R. J.", and decorated with eight pink candles, stood in the middle of the table.

"He's coming," whispered a wee lassie, who stood watching outside in the hall.

So it happened as Bobby opened the door he heard the sweet voices singing the well-known birthday song: