Something to Do, Boys!

I sometimes love to pick up old children's books because of the different perspective they give on raising children over the last few generations. Sometimes the differences are less than positive of course, but just seeing how many things have changed and how many things stay the same is fascinating to me. Anyway, we picked up a most awesome old children's book at a garage sale a while back that we have been getting a lot of use out of this summer. This particular book was copyrighted in 1916 and is entitled Something to Do, -Boys!: A Book for Wide-Awake Boys. I've tried to google it to see if I could find any other copies but haven't had any success. It is somewhat similar to The American Boys Handbook that has been reprinted and is easily found nowdays, but I think it is much more accessible and understandable without losing the charm of an older book.

The first thing that jumped out at me about this book was the fact that there was only one overtly "educational" project in the book. Only one "educational" project...how incredibly refreshing! It was the very first project in the book and consisted of the plans for making a number dial to help a smaller brother or sister who is "having trouble with number work at school". Yet, at the same time I can see that the editor is becoming aware of the idea that the "educational value" of the projects might be important. One can't help but *learn* something from this book and be *excited* about it, it's true, but at the time it was written there wasn't yet the ovarching educational agenda that is so prevalent today and so the focus of the projects is still on something *fun* to do.

There is such a plethora of projects in the book - from woodwork and metal work to raising various animals, story starters, pictures to color or copy, music, and lots more. Cameron has plans to make the racing sulky and some of the boats because they are similar to the ones he drools over in the expensive Waldorf style catalogs we receive in the mail. We've already made several of the simpler craft projects and played many of the games. The pictures above are of one of the games we played called "scammels". Basically, you take a piece of paper and crumple it up. Then you use a source of strong light (the book recommends playing just after tea when the lamps are lighted *grin*) to project the shadow of your crumpled paper onto a plain piece of paper. Trace the shadow of your crumpled paper very carefully, making sure to get all of the "queer little ins and outs". This is shape is your scammel. Once everyone has a scammel, you fill them in. The game begins when you try to make the prettiest, funniest, or whatever-est scammel. There is a suggestion for using flower shadows to make scammels in the summer. We haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like a good project for one of our nature hikes. There is also a suggestion for having your friends make scammels and sign them as a sort of autograph book. The pictures are of the kids' first scammels (a fairy and a chair), but we've had fun making lots of scammels since then.