(3) The instinct of construction. In his industrial work the very
youngest child is daily exercising his active tendency to make
things. In the kindergarten he may make the toy with which he plays,
the doll-house and its furnishings, small clay dishes, etc. In
the first grade he may make small toy animals, baskets, paper hats,
card-board doll-furniture, little houses, book-covers, toys, etc.
Self-expression, self-activity, and constructive activity would all
be utilized, and the work would have more meaning to the child, if it
_expressed some idea_, if after the story of _Three Bears_ the child
would make the Bears' kitchen, the table of wood, and the three
porridge bowls of clay, or the Bears' hall with the three chairs. In
the Grimm tale, _Sweet Rice Porridge_, after the story has been told
and before the re-telling, children would like to make a clay
porridge-pot, which could be there before them in the re-telling.
Perhaps they would make the rice porridge also, and put some in the
pot, for little children are very fond of making things to eat, and
domestic science has descended even into the kindergarten. After the
story of _Chanticleer and Partlet_, children would enjoy making a
little wagon and harnessing to it a Duck, and putting in it the Cock
and the Hen, little animals they have made. In the first grade, after
the story of _Sleeping Beauty_, children would naturally take great
pleasure in making things needed to play the story: the paper silver
and gold crowns of the maids and Princess and the Prince's sword.
After the story of _Medio Pollito_, we have noted with what special
interest children might make a weathervane, with Little Half-Chick
upon it!
(4) The instinct of artistic expression. This is the instinct of
drawing, painting, paper-cutting, and crayon-sketching, the instinct
of song, rhythm, dance, and game, of free play and dramatization.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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