The mothercraft manual

Three fundamental principles are to be noted:

1. All is grist that comes to the mill of the handworker.

2. The one element that will transform any object or combination of objects into a created product is imagination.

3. The purpose in the children’s handwork is not the production of finished products, but creative self-activity, invention, self-reliance, the making of things to use, the utilizing of materials found in the environment, the putting of ideas into concrete form, the acquisition of dexterity with the hands, the development of brain centers through use of the hands.

The nursery, playroom or yard should have a corner for tools and materials adapted to the muscles of small hands and arms. A workbench of a height adapted to the child at each stage of his development, can be purchased at the large hardware stores, or can be made from a heavy packing box. Tools should be kept in good condition, and materials neatly shelved. The child at two years can begin to keep his workshop in good order.

Forms of handwork. The suggested list begins with the simpler forms and continues to the more difficult, in each group.

Tools.

Materials. Whatever the habitat and environment provides.

The country child is the more blessed of the gods, for he has

The city child can more readily find

Every child has at hand

Purchasable material which may be useful, to be bought as needed, will include:

Handwork that is Injurious. The fine muscles of the fingers and eyes are undeveloped in the child under six years, and the nervous system is easily fatigued or overstrained. Handwork that involves use of small objects, as toothpicks, straws, lentils, peas, tiny beads, cambric needles, thread, 1-inch blocks, small papers, is a nervous strain upon the child. Fine lines, dots, holes, the following of a fine line in cutting or coloring, are also injurious to the eyes. Such fine material and work is no longer used in kindergartens that have respect for child hygiene.

Too long seated application to work at a table is also injurious. Half an hour is long enough for any child under nine years to sit still at work. If he is voluntarily absorbed longer, some active diversion should be arranged for a quarter hour, at least.

Work suggested that is too difficult for the child to do alone either discourages him by its impossibility, or develops dependence upon others.

Educational Values. The handwork is, educationally, a means of giving concrete expression to imaginative ideas, and of making the experience of the child more vivid. Stories, scenes from history, records of the child’s own experience, can be portrayed. The child does not naturally copy literally from objects.

No effort should be made, before six years, to produce finished products. Technique or skill in production do not belong to this period. Vividness, self-expression, development of motor control of arms and hands, coördination of eye and hand, the joy of workmanship, the confidence in creating,—these are the purposes of handwork in early childhood.

The genetic method in handwork is to start with your idea of what you want to make, and then make it of such material as you can find. This is Nature’s process, the child’s process, of creating.

The list of ideas to be realized will fall into a few groups:

If any genius is involved in handwork, it is in adapting any kind of material to the realization of any one of these ideas.

Dolls. Clothespins with cloth or paper tied on are about the simplest.

Corncobs, with “real” silk hair, clothes of corn husks or cloth make popular dolls. Arms may be made of cloth bags stuffed with paper, cotton, cloth, and sewed into the shoulder seam of the dress.

Rag dolls stuffed with cloth, the features and fingers marked in with ink or water color. Any one can cut a rag doll pattern from muslin. (For sanitary reasons, rag dolls are not so popular as they used to be.)

Nut dolls. Peanut dolls are made by using double nuts, sewed together to make the head, arms, legs and body; the features and hair marked with ink. Almond, hickory, hazel and walnut heads are used, attached to sticks or rag bodies. Corks, clay pipes, bone buttons, raffia, yarn, may be used for doll heads with these bodies.

Vegetable dolls. Carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, squashes may be used, and the features marked with ink or knife.

The temporary possibility of vegetable, nut, and other “stunt” dolls does not add to their popularity. They are of interest chiefly after nine years, when the doll interest is waning.

Paper dolls. Bodies made of stiff paper or pasteboard, with clothes that can be taken off and put on. Faces can be drawn with ink or water colors, or heads from pictures may be pasted on.

Such paper dolls must be of a size to handle with ease.

Paper dolls cut singly or in chains, by folding paper and cutting, are a source of amusement to children about five, and of creative enjoyment about eight, when there is the motor ability and imagination to create them in great variety.

Animals and Birds. Vegetable. Use large vegetables for body; twigs or toothpicks for legs; straw, string, yarn, for tails; pins, beads, buttons, cloves, currants, raisins, for eyes; leaves, paper, cloth, for nose and ears; gashes for mouth.

Paper. Cut out freehand, or from heavy outline, in newspaper, drawing paper, wrapping paper.

Pasteboard. Cut with strong scissors or with coping saw. These may have legs, heads, and tails made separately and attached with thread, string, or fine wire so they will move.

Wooden. Draw from paper designs, cut from whitewood or other soft wood, with coping saw. These, too, may have movable limbs.

Kindergarten supply houses publish a set of paper patterns for animals and one for birds.

Animals and birds may be colored with water colors. Or wooden ones may be painted “true to life”, using the shellac and colors; about three coats are required. They are then waterproof, and the colors will not run. A paper or pasteboard support can be fastened to the back side of animals so they will stand up. Birds may be hung by a thread from the ceiling or window frame.

Boys who can whittle can carve out animals, thus providing some with three dimensions.

Houses. Houses are easily made from boxes by cutting out or drawing on doors and windows, with slanting or flat roofs of pasteboard or corrugated board. Porches, lean-tos, extensions, chimneys, steeples, gables, can be added by gluing or sewing on additional pasteboard. Castles, forts, silos, water towers are made from round boxes. Houses may be decorated with water colors.

Animal and menagerie cages are made by cutting out strips from one side of a box. Staircases are made of folded paper or bristol board.

Paper houses can be made from stiff paper, with doors and windows drawn or cut out. These are easily made, and a source of amusement for a rainy day, but not highly valued because not enduring.

Wooden houses are the joy of childhood. A house small enough to be convenient indoors, or large enough to play in outdoors, is one of the chief rights of childhood. For children under six or seven years, a packing box can be used. Two boxes of the same size make a two-story house. The children can scrub, sandpaper, paint, the outside and floors, design or saw out windows, put in partitions to divide into separate rooms, add a slanting roof and chimney. Doors may be added with hinges. Bricks may be made of clay and fastened together with cement or glue for a tiny brick house. Staircases are made of strips or blocks of the wood.

Children over seven can build a real wooden house with a little suggestion. They are also able to make small cement blocks for a block house. Boys of ten or twelve can make a log hut.

Trains, Wagons, Boats, Vehicles. Pasteboard vehicles can be made from spool boxes, candy boxes, match boxes. For wheels use spools, round wooden buttons, round box covers, milk bottle covers, circles cut from pasteboard. For axles use skewers, toothpicks, nails. Axles and wheels may be tacked, sewed, or pasted to the wagon. Axles may be dispensed with, and the wheels pasted directly to the wagon box. Dashboards, seats, canopies, foot rests, smokestacks, cowcatchers of paper or pasteboard can be pasted on, or attached with brass paper fasteners.

Paper wagons and cars can be made from a paper square folded into sixteen small squares, the sides and ends turned up and pasted, and paper circles pasted on for wheels. Paper seats and canopies can be added. The proportions can be changed by cutting out some of the squares.

Wooden vehicles are most satisfactory, because they can be made to really go, and boats can be sailed,—which is a boat’s very reason for existing.

For wagons or cars, a soap box or starch box is very satisfactory. The axles should be securely nailed on, absolutely straight. Material for axles and wheels will depend upon the size of the wagon and degree of efficiency desired. For small, crude vehicles, large wooden button molds, wooden spools (possibly sawed in half) may be utilized for wheels, and toothpicks, kindergarten sticks, or twigs for axles. A small nail or small circle of pasteboard, wax, or plasticine slipped on to the axle, each side of the wheel, will keep the latter in place. For more efficient and finished work, wooden disks of a suitable size and with the hole bored through, and the round sticks of a size to fit them, may be purchased from the carpenter shop or planing mill. Or the holes may be bored with the gimlet and filed out to size. The axles are glued into the disks, then glued, nailed, or screwed to the wagon or car body, and the edges filed or sandpapered so the wheels will turn. Or the disks may be nailed at the end of the axle, using a heavy nail with large head. For nicer work, regular wheels and axles may be purchased at the hardware store.

The engine smokestack is made from an empty spool or round box glued on. The cars are coupled together with string, wire, rope, or tiny chains purchased at the hardware store.

The simplest boat is merely a raft with a string tacked on, a spool smokestack, or a sail of paper on a wooden toothpick or skewer, tacked on one end or put into a nail hole. Beyond this is the two or three-decked boat made by fastening small wooden fig boxes or cigar boxes to the four pillars made from slats of a fruit crate, the first deck tacked to a thick block of wood for a keel. This boat will carry real cargoes.

A raft, either doll size or real size, of half-inch board nailed to two parallel joists, can be made by the six-year-old. With the coping saw, a sailboat deck with pointed ends can be made from the whitewood, a block nailed beneath for keel, a sailcloth of muslin hemmed and fastened with cord or small rope to a mast that fits into the hole bored by the gimlet.

Any number of tiny boats may be made of corks, nutshells, eggshells, with sails of paper and cloth, masts and oars of toothpicks, skewers or twigs, seats of paper or pasteboard.

Rafts may be made of sticks, corncobs, or strips of bark bound together with raffia, grasses, or cord. A canoe may be made of birch bark or leather sewed together at the ends, and lined with oiled paper, rubber cloth or oilcloth to make it water-tight. This will carry dolls and cargo.

Furniture. This can be made by the wholesale.

Paper. The easiest way is to use the paper square, folded into sixteen squares, folding and cutting away to get the desired proportions. Paper circles are used for wheels, rockers, mirrors, stove lids; silver paper for mirrors; gilt paper for brass ornaments. Water color gives realistic touches.

Pasteboard. Sheet bristol board may be used, first drawing the design carefully, providing for lapping, folding along the marked lines, and pasting the laps. In this way any desired size can be had. The designs can first be made in paper.

Pasteboard boxes require less work. Spools may be glued to a box cover as legs for a table or chair. Small spools for legs, or pasteboard semicircles fastened on for rockers, transform a box into a cradle. Safety match boxes glued on top of each other, with a paper fastener or button attached as a knob to the sliding sections, make a tiny chiffonier; a pasteboard frame attached to the back has a silver paper mirror or even one of the tiny real glass pocket mirrors. Beds may be made by fastening a pasteboard strip for head and foot board to the ends of a shallow oblong box. A poster bed is made from an oblong box and cover, sticking four skewers at the corners for legs and posts.

Crude wooden furniture can be made from soft blocks of wood fastened together with small wire nails. Chairs are made by nailing a back strip to a block seat; tables by nailing a square or round top to a center block or to blocks at each corner for legs.

Grocery boxes, shoe boxes, cigar boxes, fruit crates, will furnish cheap material of pine wood. This, however, splits easily, has knotholes and splinters, and is a last resort. An assortment of whitewood, one-half inch thick, in one, two, three and four-inch width strips, will be much more satisfactory. Patterns and dimensions should first be made.

Dishes. Nutshells, sea shells, acorn cups, leaves, gourds, chips, corn husks, pea pods, milkweed pods, eggshells, hollowed out apples, potatoes, squashes are the merest suggestion of the natural dishes suitable to a primitive and child life society.

Modeling clay or plasticine are the most satisfactory materials for dishes. Many dishes and utensils can be cut freehand in outline from Manila or silver paper, tin foil, bristol board. Children at nine or ten can work in hammered brass and bent iron.

Games. Ringtoss. Glue a small, straight stick, as a piece of a broom handle, upright to a flat board or disk. Make rings of several sizes from willow or other flexible branches, tied with raffia or cord; or use embroidery hoops, or rims from cheese boxes, hat boxes, small kegs. Any of these may be wound with raffia, strips of colored cloth, or ribbon.

Faba Gaba. Make bean bags of different sizes. Make a frame by nailing four strips together and nailing two strips across this square to divide it into four holes. This may be varied by (a) making the holes of uneven dimensions; (b) making a larger frame and dividing into six or nine even or uneven dimensions; (c) making three or four concentric or contiguous circles.

Grace Hoops. Make hoops as for ringtoss, about twelve inches in diameter. Make sticks about two feet long, half-inch diameter, of straight young branches, old toy brooms, old curtain rods; or buy them at the carpenter shop. Rings and sticks may be wound as in ringtoss.

Colored balls. Crochet covers of colored string or embroidery silk for rubber balls, or sew segments of colored linen or silk together for cover. Select carefully a series of true prismatic colors,—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Attach a string of the braided cord, silk or fabric. These are washable and more sanitary than the worsted balls.

Toys. Mechanical toys that children make themselves are of educational value, as well as interest. In making their own mechanical toys the children learn the significance of many principles in physics, and are able to apply these in a variety of ways. Some children will thus discover principles for themselves.

Toy theaters, with shifting scenery and curtains that can be pulled back or rolled up and down

Toy elevators that will work up and down to carry passengers

Toy pendulum clocks that will tick

Toy derricks that will haul up a load of sand, coal, or bricks, and empty these

Woodchoppers, scissor-grinder men, acrobats, blacksmiths at their anvils, bell ringers, carpenters, laundresses, cooks, housekeepers, all made to work by the manipulation of strings, springs, or cleverly balanced and counterbalanced weights, shot or marble

Toy telephones, electric bells, wireless telegraph systems

Automobiles and engines that will go, the motor power furnished by a spring, windlass, or tiny, homemade electric battery.