GAMES AND OCCUPATIONS THAT WILL KEEP CHILDREN OUT OF MISCHIEF

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 897, 14 February 1930, Page 5

GAMES AND OCCUPATIONS THAT WILL KEEP CHILDREN OUT OF MISCHIEF

MUMMY, what can I do now? Many a tired mother has felt as though the constant repetition of this question was irritating her almost beyond endurance. And yet so many priceless lessons can be taught to children by means of wisely directed ■“plays” that no mother or teacher should consider time wasted that is .spent in this way. Naughtiness and disappear when an interesting garrvie is substituted. Making something is a splendid safety valve for undirected activity that so often becomes mischief. Outdoor Occupations. If you have a big (or even a small) garden and shrubbery, you will not need to go far afield to find recreation for your little ones.. Almost as soon as a child can walk and talk he is old enough to enjoy “helping mother” in the garden, and, if provided with a set of tools not too large for him to handle, will learn how to use them intelligently in a surprisingly short time. Anyone who has had much to do with little children knows that, with quite 90 per cent, of them, the strongest instinct is to help, to do something for, or give something to, “mother” or some other loved one, and a garden is a splendid outlet for his beneficent tendency. “God Almighty first t>lan:cd a garden, and it is indeed the purest of all human pleasures,” says Lord Bacon, and children seem instantly to recognise the truth of this axiom. In a retired part of one of the prettiest gardens in Christchurch are four little plots cultivated by four children, ranging in age from five to 11. These plots are in a position where they get plenty of sunshine, and where water is close at hand. Before being handed over to the children, they were deeply trenched and given a 'good subsoil of well-rotted garden refuse, the safest form of manure. The little five-year-old in Ills plot grows mustard and cress, lettuce, radishes, and a few gaudy sunflowers, and is as proud of his products as if they were equal to those that won the first prizes at the last horticultural show. The girl next in age devotes the whole of her “farm” to growing herbs, and has quite a collection of them. She is very delighted when she produces enough thyme, parsley, and sage for the stuffing of the Christmas goose, or presents a little hunch of lavender to one of her particular friends. Flowers are the speciality of her sister, aged nine, and many a sweetsmelling posy is gathered by her busy little fingers for presentation to friends and relatives, but woe betide the intruder who dares without permission to meddle with her cherished blossoms! The eldest boy is quite an advanced horticulturist, and, this year, is experimenting in hybridising gladioli. ITc has about a dozen of such plants _as “Hinemoa,” “Baron Jules Hulot,” “King Pearl,” etc. All the flowers are tied up in muslin, waiting for the thrilling moment when, under his father’s instructions, with a hand almost trembling with excitement, he will fertilise them with selected pollen applied with a camel-hair brush. These children are never dull, never in want of occupation, and, while they are thus happily employed, are learning lessons that will be useful to them all their lives. The Poultry Yard.

Another fascinating pursuit for children is helping in the poultry yard. Two little girls living on Mount s%s**sant have so well trained the .bantam hems they have had as pets for four years that the little creatures always lay their pretty eggs in a porcelain howl partly filled with cut grass placed on a shelf for that purpose by their young mistresses. A houseful of children can be amused

for days and weeks in dissecting a last year’s nest they have found on the ground, collecting materials of the same kind and trying to construct one like it. Some clever little fingers are quite wonderfully deft at this work. If you are taking your children to the seaside or into the bush, just note how tremendously it will add to their interest and pleasure if you provide each with a box (a starch or cereal box will do nicely) into which to put any treasures in the way of shells or stones or curious foliage they may find. Indoor Occupations. On wet and windy days, when children must be inside, there are endless ways in which they can be happily and usefully amused. Home-made playthings answer every need. Modern complex toys stunt the imagination, since they leave nothing to it. For the very’ little one, empty spools are delightful playthings. He can pile them high and knock them down again, and perform all sorts of building operations. Blowing soap bubbles entertains children of all ages and a clay’ pipe for each child is all the apparatus required. A 3d exercise book, a pair of blunt scissors costing a few pence, a pile of old illustrated papers, a brush and a pot of paste will furnish children with the materials for making a scrap book that they will infinitely prefer to the most expensive one you could buy for them. And the next wet day that you are baking give each child a small piece of dough (half white aud half coloured pink with cochineal) and a handful of currants, and see how they will revel in making, not only’ all sorts of pies and tarts, but frogs, men and women, dogs and birds. Bake their productions to hard crisp biscuits, and you will find that they will eat them with a relish that the creations of the most skilled chef could not excite. Potato stick printing is another fascinating game. Children of five and six enjoy this, and it continues to be interestng as they grow older. First, a potato is cut into several sticks with the end surfaces made flat for printing. Several shapes can be made. The most useful and the simplest are a square £in by £in, an oblong £in by lin, and a triangle with two sides each Mn. The top end of the potato stick may be wrapped in paper to prevent the paint soiling the fingers. The flat surface of the printing end is dipped into watercolour paint mixed quite thickly*. The stick is then stamped on to paper or clothing, leaving the coloured design. Very pretty things can be made this way. Unbleached calicp makes an excellent cover for mother’s cook-book, and a border design in two colours is most attractive. Bags of all sorts, kettle holders, and many other things will suggest themselves as being all the better for a hit of decoration. However much the eager children may enjoy these various occupations, they will, after an hour or so, become very tired of sitting still, and then it is a good plan to try some such diversion as the following:— The Game of Dicky Birds. Tell the children to make themselves as much like birds as possible. They can do this by putting their fingers on their shoulders, their elbow’s to their sides, and bending their knees until they are in a sitting posture. Then they can perform all sorts of bird evolutions, such as hopping, stretching wings, tucking them up, flying out of the nest, etc. All these exercises will be enjoyed, but when the merry children are told to w’addle across the room, bending their necks frOm side to side like ducks looking for worms, and occasionally to utter loud and triumphant quacks when they are supposed to have found one, the most determined misanthrope in the w T orld, if he chanced to be looked on, could hardly restrain a sympathetic smile.