Little Folks' Handy Book: Simple Homemade Toy Projects

Originally published in 1910, this book furnishes the means of gratifying the impulse toward self-expression that, properly directed, is a great factor in a child's 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 cannot 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.

The book opens a large field of simple handicrafts for little folks by showing how creditable and instructive toys can be made from 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 Little Folks' Handy 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. Therefore, the 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.

Contents Covered:

• Preface
• Paper Building Cards
• Toys Made of Common Wooden Berry-Baskets
• Straw and Paper Furniture
• A Newspaper Boat Which Will Sail on Real Water
• Paper Jewelry
• What to Make of Empty Spools
• Old Envelope Toys and How to Make Them
• Toys of Clothespins
• Scrapbooks
• Toys Made of Common Kindling Wood
• Little Twig People
• Visiting-Card Houses
• Playing Indians with Costumes Made of Newspapers
• Christmas-Tree Decorations
• A Homemade Santa Claus
• Nature Study with Tissue Paper