acorn he hid in the ground. So the acorn went to sleep. The white snow came and covered it like a blanket. It slept all winter. When the warm sun shone in the springtime, the little acorn stretched and woke up and began to grow. First the roots went down, and then the little oak tree inside pushed up a green leaf right out of the ground. There was the sun shining on it to help it grow. So it grew and grew until it was a big oak tree.

Can you say this:

"Great oaks from little acorns grow?"

Now you may find your acorns and put them in my basket.

Think a moment. Where did you hide yours? Shall we plant one little acorn in a flower pot and see if it will grow for us?

Wednesday, Oct. 9. A new fall song taught. Consult your music books. "Maple leaf with five fingers"-also "Picking Apples" in "Nature Songs and Stories" by Harietta M. Mills and Elsie Merriman.

"Apples to pick! Apples to pick!

Come with a basket, come with a stick,
Rustle the trees and shake them down
And let every boy take care of his crown."

In Miss Poulsson's "Songs for a Little Child's Day" there is a fine wind song calling to the leaves. In every book a good autumn song can be found but the words should connect with some previous story or experience and be developed line by linenot drilled mechanically. Whenever possible dramatize the song. This helps to bring out the meaning.

Thursday, Oct. 10. Review finger plays. Teach "Cage the Squirrel," making a cage with two hands and inviting Mr. Squirrel to come and live with you. He answers, "I'd rather far live here and be free." What does free mean?

Friday, Oct. 11. Review the Squirrel finger play, autumn songs and out door experiences if you have had any.

Have an indoor nut party if no out-door experience is possible.

THIRD WEEK

Monday, Oct. 14. Social conversation of home experiences on Saturday and Sunday. See if any child can sing a Sunday school song or tell a Bible story. If permissible tell one yourself. Perhaps some of even the little ones will tell about "Columbus Day" which falls on Saturday this year but is sometimes a school holiday.

Have a picture of Columbus and his tree ships if you can. The experiences of the holiday at home may be the starting point of a story. I have dramatized the Columbus story very simply with a boy of six. Let some one be "Queen Isabella.” Let her wear a chain of beads or paper made by the children to represent her jewels. She gives them to Columbus to buy some ships. Then Columbus comes sailing to our country and finds only Indians here.

Almost always some children have Indian suits. Tell them to wear them next day and play the story again.

Tuesday, Oct. 15. Playing Columbus. If this

story seems beyond the children, play about the ocean, have the sand table with boats and talk about the big ocean which father or brother or neighbor crossed to go to war. It is the same ocean Columbus crossed long ago. It is the Atlantic ocean. We are sorry there are submarines. (Alas, the children see moving pictures and know about these war vessels. Let us encourage them to send some pictures or toys in one of the Red Cross ships to the little children whose homes were burned.

Wednesday, Oct. 16. A new song or a new verse of the one taught last week. Echoes for training the voice.

Thursday, Oct. 17. A ball game. Six colored balls in a row. Try in turns to hit the red ball or any other color chosen. Take time for all to have a turn. To watch each other eagerly and to wait patiently is a fine lesson.

Friday, Oct. 18. Review as desired.

FOURTH WEEK

Monday, Oct. 21. Social chat as usual. Perhaps some child on this or some other day will report a birthday party or a new baby brother. Watch for these life experiences, big with importance in every case. Build upon them. They are your ciues.

Tuesday, Oct. 22. Story hour. Billy Bobtail, or any pleasing animal story bringing in repetition. Play barnyard and imitate sounds of animals.

Wednesday, Oct. 23. New song selected with the Thanksgiving festival in thought. Hunt books for the one you like best. It will need a month of practice to know it well for parents' day. It is not necessary to mention the holiday before November. Thursday, Oct. 24. Story of Cinderella or a simple story of Brownies. "The Elves and the Shoemaker"

A KINDERGARTEN UNIT IN FRANCE

Children Who Have Forgotten How to LaughWhat Miss Curtis and Miss Orr Found"Friends of the Children of the World"

Kindergartners of America have raised more than $35,000 to pay the expenses of equipping and sending kindergarten teachers to France to help refugee children develop as normally as possible under the conditions that prevail. The picture drawn by two American kindergartners who have returned from the war region has thrilled their fellow workers.

The Children at Evian-les-bains

Americans are doing war work, and doing it strenuously, but while working they know that their homes are safe and that their children are laughing and playing with the joyful abandon of healthy childhood. At Evian-les-bains, on the French border, the tale is different. There day by day the Germans are sending back to France captured French civilians who are of no further use to them. Hundreds of children come in on those trains each day who have been so scared by the fearful blast of war that they neither cry nor complain, and who have forgotten how to play and laugh. Picture that tragic, daily procession of children with buglers at the front to keep the weary feet from wandering in the wrong direction! Picture the misery on the faces of those hundreds of undernourished children who have been through all the terrors of warfare and are being passed from group to group of strange people with strange ways! These children need physical care; like American children, they will not grow to well-balanced manhood and womanhood if the power of developing self-active, creative, joyful play is not restored to them.

A Commission on the Conservation of Children Miss Fanniebelle Curtis, director of the kindergartens in New York City, and Miss Mary Orr, a member of the New York school board, were sent to France and England last September as members of a commission from the Citizens' Committee for the Conservation of the Children of America During the War to study the effect of war upon children. At Paris they visited the colonies of refugee children of the Franco-American committee for the protection of children from the frontier, and Miss Wharton's work with the children of Flanders. They traveled through the war zone and to Evianles-bains, where the French are repatriating the thousands of people the Germans are sending in from their prison camps.

Everywhere the commission found children whose terrible experiences had left them dazed and benumbed. These children, who have been through the horrors of bombardment and gas (at Toules alone 350 children between 1 and 8 years of age were gassed), are the children of the home-loving French peasant who clings to his home until the last possible moment. In the horror of trying to escape the German advance many children saw their

parents killed while others were lost in the mad rush and could find neither kith nor kin.

At Evian-les-bains the commission found children who were being sent back from German prison camps where they had been taken with the entire civil population. The trains brought in 800 children a day who had been through horrors untold.

Everywhere these children were undernourished; everywhere they were dazed, not laughing, not crying, possessed by the eternal cry of "Hush, the Boches are near!" and the nights of darkness and terror, lost among strange faces. They have been torn by the roots from all that is loved and understood and plunged into an inconceivable inferno. If their minds are to react from this state of frightfulness, if their sanity is to be saved, they must not only have food and physical care, but they must have nurture for their souls as well.

The commission was most enthusiastic about the wonderful work already being accomplished for these children by Dr. William Palmer Lucas, chief of the Children's Bureau of the American Red Cross in France.

Miss Curtis and Miss Orr have come back filled with the conviction that trained kindergartners are needed to enlist for the work of mothering these children and giving back to them some of the joys of normal childhood.

Friends of the Children

In a letter to the Friends of the Children of the World Miss Curtis says:

The country that does not suffer from invasion can never know the supreme sacrifice of war.

We have infinite resources in America to keep our Nation's children safe and secure and that duty we shall never forget. The very safety of our children here leads us to present to you the story of the accumulated misery of the little children of France and Belgium. They have been in gassed regions, they have been lost on the fields of Flanders, they have fled from their burning villages, they have been actual prisoners with the civilian population back of the enemies' lines.

I have seen these child refugees coming in at Evian-les-bains in France at the rate of 500 a day. It is a tragedy that has no parallel in the world's history. These children are being placed in colonies, in chateaux, in convents, in convalescent hospitals, until victory with honor is won. They need songs and stories and the joys of childhood restored, and more than all, they need mothering.

Every foreign mail brings more pitiful stories. It is childhood's darkest hour.

To help meet this need of the children the kindergarten unit has been formed for service in France. Miss Curtis and Miss Orr are the directors of the unit, Mr. H. B. Mitchell, 189 Montague Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., is the financial advisor and auditor, and Miss Marjory Halstead is the secretary-treasurAlready several kindergartners have been sent to France, and others will follow as fast as money can be raised for that purpose. It has been estimated that it will take from $1,500 to $2,500 to equip

er.

The kindergarten unit is working under the auspices of the Citizens' Committee for the Conservation of the Children of America During the War, in affiliation with the American branch of the International Kindergarten Union and with the Children's Bureau of the American Red Cross in Paris.

All applications for service with the unit should be made to Miss Fanniebelle Curtis, director of the kindergarten unit for France, 200 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., and all contributions for the support of the unit should be sent to Miss Marjory Halstead, secretary-treasurer for the kindergarten unit fund, 50 Van Buren Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., or Miss May Murray, treasurer of the International Kindergarten Union, 40 High Street, Springfield, Mass. From School Life, U. S. Bureau of Education.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

By Bertha Johnston Brooklyn, N. Y.

Mothers' Meetings (Continued)

In every recently-graduated kindergarten class, there are likely to be a few, who, primed by their newly-acquired knowledge, may be inclined to think that all wisdom is theirs, and that all the non-kindergarten world rests in Egyptian darkness. It is well to be loyal to the light that is within us, and the truth that has been vouchsafed us. It is also well to have the open mind and be ready to welcome truth that may emanate from those who do not happen to belong to the elect. Apropos of this remark, we would recommend to the teacher a charming and helpful book, "As the Twig is Bent," written by Mrs. Chenery. The introduction tells how the author, a teacher, is invited to become the guest of a dearly-loved sister whom she had not seen since the latter had married and become the mother of two children. She accepts, thinking how, after her years of teaching she can in part repay her sister's hospitality by the pedagogical advice she can give as to the raising of children. In a delightful spirit of humility and open-mindedness, the book proceeds to tell how the shoe is upon the other foot. It is the mother whose wisdom and common sense and high ideals, teach the teacher, who every day simply observes and receives beautiful lessons in real motherhood and the ideal training of childhood in the home. And so, the kindergartner, presiding at her Mothers' Meetings, will be a learner as well as a leader. On the other hand, the timid noviatiate, who is perhaps inclined to underestimate her abilities and feel stage struck and paralysed when facing the mothers at her first meeting, if she forget herself in the general rites of hospitality and the joy of sharing her good tidings of great joy, will find that self-consciousness and fear will flee if she has conscientiously prepared for this first important meeting upon which so much may depend.

Subjects for Mothers' Meetings

There are many subjects for discussion at Mothers' Meetings, but possibly one of the first with which it is best to start off, is a demonstration of the meaning and purpose of the kindergarten Gifts and Occupations. If the parents visit the kindergarten and see the children building a few objects with the blocks, or painting or working in clay, they naturally think of the child-garden as a place where the children go to have a good time, to be out of mischief, and incidentally to learn a few facts about number and color that may hasten their progress through the Primary grades. Let the Director give a little talk upon the Gifts, and demonstrate the many ways in which they are employed and the different qualities of mind, body and soul, which they exercise and develop,

Give a simple dictation lesson to these grown people and let them realize the concentration needed to follow the directions exactly. But also take occasion to explain that close dictation is not used with the children until they are old enough and developed enough to follow without nervous strainthat free play and directed play precede dictation.

Show the enlarged vocabulary that comes to the child in playing with the balls, the names of colors, names of the different motions, tossing, bouncing, rolling, whirling, twisting, etc. The social lessons learned when playing with the balls; the child lets another child have his chance; he learns to play fair, to play gently, etc. With the Second Gift,

Only the older children will be able to make it and these only if they have had some experience in such work.

Take a square of paper, about 8 x 8 inches. Give the usual dictation for obtaining 64 small squares. Open, and cut away completely one half of the square leaving an oblong measuring 4 x 8 inches. Cut off four of these leaving oblong 4 x 7. Fold this oblong lengthwise. Copy on the blackboard the accompanying diagram which represents this oblong. Let the children copy on their oblongs the deeper lines, and cut along these. Then open and turn wheels so that they run in the right direction. Also turn blades of propeller, one up, one down.

show the lesson unconsciously learned, of the connection of opposites, the reconciliation of contrasts, and explain and show the many ways in which the Gift is played with; how it can be a boat, a car, etc., how the contents can be made into a wheelbarrow, a steam roller, etc.

To recur to the Building Gifts, show how they may make forms of use and of beauty, and are used to teach mathematical and geometrical facts. Show how in building the forms of life all kinds of little lessons in thoughtfulness for others may be inculcated-we build a set of furniture and of course make an arm-chair for grandpa; we make an automobile and tell how careful we will be in driving through the crowded streets and we will never go faster than the city laws allow, lest we injure some other person. We play store and always carry home such parcels as we can to save other people trouble, especially at Christmas time. And if anyone by mistake gives us too much change of course we always give it back.

Such plays practiced with the mothers will give them a new idea of the meaning back of the play with the Gifts.

AN AEROPLANE OF PAPER-FOLDING OR CARDBOARD

We have devised a small biplane which can be cut of a single piece of folding paper or of cardboard. The latter is rather more practicable as it is firmer and holds its shape better. The teacher should make one first so as to know exactly how to proceed. Then she should draw the half plan on the blackboard that her dictation may be better followed.