Public-domain ebook
Little Folks' Handy Book
by Beard, Lina; Beard, Adelia B.
Language: en6,966 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Children & Young Adult Reading·How To ...
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #25462.
About this book
Little Folks’ Handy Book is a practical guide to simple handicrafts aimed at children in kindergarten and primary school. The authors open with a clear educational premise: encouraging youngsters to “do it” themselves, using ordinary materials such as paper, empty spools, wooden clothespins, twigs, and newspaper to create toys, furniture and decorative objects. The opening passage explains how the act of making nurtures observation, intelligence and a sense of triumph, then outlines the book’s structure, twenty‑four chapters ranging from paper building cards to Christmas‑tree decorations, each illustrated with step‑by‑step instructions that the authors have tested themselves.
Written in a warm, instructional tone typical of early‑twentieth‑century American children’s manuals, the prose combines gentle encouragement with precise measurements and clear diagrams. Its language is straightforward yet enthusiastic, reflecting the 1910 publication date and the pedagogical concerns of that era. Readers who enjoy hands‑on activities, teachers seeking classroom projects, or parents looking for inexpensive, creative play ideas will find the book both accessible and inspiring.
The opening · free to read
"LET me do it. Let me make it," is the cry when a child sees an older person putting together the different parts of an interesting piece of work; and it is this desire to do things himself, this impulse toward self-expression, that, when properly directed, forms so great a factor in his all-around development and education. Using the hands and brain together stimulates interest and quickens observation and intelligence, and, as the object takes form beneath the little fingers, the act of making, of creating, brings with it a delight and satisfaction which the mere possession of the same thing made by another can not give. "Look! See what I have made," comes with a ring of triumph as the childish hands gleefully hold up the finished article for inspection.
In this book we have endeavored to open a new and large field of simple handicrafts for little folk, giving them an original line of toys and a new line of materials with which to make them. We hope in these pages to bring to children the joy of making creditable and instructive toys of such ordinary things as empty spools, sticks of kindling wood, wooden clothespins, natural twigs, old envelopes and newspapers, and in this way to encourage resourcefulness, originality, inventiveness, and the power to do with supplies at hand.
Everything described in the book has been actually made by the authors, and made by such practical and simple methods that a child's mind can grasp them, and a child's hands be easily trained to manufacture the articles. It is, therefore, our hope that the "Little Folks' Handy Book" will be found useful both in Kindergarten and Primary grades of the schools and in the home nursery; a helpful friend to teachers and to mothers.
LINA BEARD. ADELIA B. BEARD.
FLUSHING, N. Y., February 10, 1910.
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