Imatges de pàgina
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Address: PROFESSIONAL PROJECT DEVELOPMENT DIVISION

WALCO BEAD CO.

37 WEST 37th STREET

W. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Harper Brothers, New York City Womans Press, New York City Columbia University Press, New York City National Recreation Association W. W. Norton, New York City Educational

The Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture

National Congress P. T. A.

Recreation Division, W. P. A.

Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor National Park Service

Why Not a Stay-at-Home Vacation?

(Continued from page 92)

individual members. Especially the hobbies connected with nature are furthered by the walks in woods and by streams. Collections are sure to be started. The leaves of different trees may attract the attention of sister; brother is sure to fill his pockets with rocks varied in color and interesting in formation. Ferns, grasses, mosses, shells and birds' nests are other collections begun during this time that will grow as days in the open are re

NEW YORK. N. Y.

peated, and arranged and catalogued when winter days come.

Another of the hobbies that will be fostered by these nature hikes is the home aquarium. There are quite a few of native fishes from the ponds and streams of our northern climate that may be found and netted alive for use in the home tank. The most effective ones as far as beauty is concerned are the rosy-sided minnows and the redbellied dace. Sun fishes and darters are also active and pretty and in silvery contrast to the exotic goldfish. The native fish that come from still water will be hardier than the ones accustomed to the constant movement of streams. Only the small varieties should be brought to the inside tank. If the pool is out-of-doors then a greater latitude of choice is feasible. This is particularly true if there is a fountain or a steady intake and outgo of water.

The family group that contains a member who belongs to one of the camps set up this winter by the Recreation Camping project in New York City will find they have a mine of information within their midst. During the winter at per

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manent camps set up in settlements and community houses, the children have been learning camp and nature craft that this spring they are putting into operation on camp hikes. They have mastered the craft of fire construction of several types with an eye to the location, the weather and the function of the fire. They have learned the woods best suited and the way to guard against fire hazards. They have found the use of shelters and how to throw one up for the occasion-storm, wind or hot sun. They are tasting natural environment, gaining an understanding of nature as friend and foe and how to use the terrain they cross as pioneers did.

The families with even a very young member who has garnered these lessons of campcraft, will be able to take and heartily enjoy a stay-at-home vacation.

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A Parade is Passing By!

(Continued from page 97)

den, with a windmill built in the center. The children were dressed in Dutch costumes which had been made at their playground under the supervision of the costume designer. Following the float was a small Dutch cart pulled by a large dog and driven by a small girl in Dutch costume.

The highest praise went to the Liberty float, decorated by a large public service company at its own expense. This was part of the presentation of history of our country from the days of the covered wagon to the present. The other floats of this exhibit included a reproduction of a Conestoga covered wagon, pulled by a team of horses and carrying children dressed as pioneers and playing banjos and mouth harps, and an American Indian float bearing a wigwam and children dressed as Indians. Another playground, in portraying America, chose the one phase of Radio City, and presented a large float on which were built several cardboard buildings and a radio tower to show Radio City at night.

The two colored playgrounds put on jointly the history of the Negro race under the title, "From the Plantation to Harlem." Their float, showing a plantation scene, was sponsored by the colored Elks. Other floats depicted a Japanese garden, a Spanish fiesta scene, the Land of Fun and Frolic, and Germany and the Olympics.

It required thirty minutes for the procession to pass, and 15,000 persons crowded the streets along the route to watch the parade.

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ROYAL TYPEWRITER COMPANY, Inc.

2 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK, N. Y.

The parade was scarcely over before we were deluged with requests from local merchants to sponsor floats in our parade next year.

Following the parade, the group hurried to a high school auditorium to prepare for the second half of the program, the revue, and by curtain time that night the house was filled with more than twelve hundred persons. Each of the nine acts of the revue was greeted by encore after encore from an amazingly responsive audience. The high spot of the entertainment was offered by the two colored playgrounds with an imitation of Cab Calloway and his band and a plantation number including sixty children singing Negro melodies.

The countries represented in the float in the parade - America, Hawaii, Germany, Japan and Holland-were represented at the revue with traditional songs and dances in costume. The entire program was novel and sufficiently diversified to appeal to all ages and to give the playground children opportunity to exercise their various talents.

In connection with the show we published a program in which we sold space; we received generous cooperation from the merchants. These

programs were distributed several days before the revue, and again at the door the night of the performance in order to advertise further the parade and revue.

Cooperation from the playground workers and the city as a whole alone made possible the success of our presentations.

Fairmont is a city of 25,000 persons. Its playground history is four years old, but in that time the number of playgrounds has increased from five to fourteen. The program extends over twelve weeks each summer, with two periods each day of the week except Saturday and Sunday. Attendance in the 1936 season was 132,106, an increase of 34,000 over last year with an average annual attendance of 90,000. The playgrounds employ forty-two workers of whom fifteen were supplied by the Works Progress Administration. Under their direction a well-rounded recreational program is developed. The playgrounds were admitted last year to participation in the Community Chest and given an allotment of $1,600, but prior to that time the playground director and his helpers had raised money by ball games, dances, basketball games, soft ball tournaments

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MILLIONS OF BOOKS-AND RECREATION

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On May 1, 1933 twelve hundred thousand volumes of the Jacket Library were placed on sale at fifteen cents each. A nation-wide publicity program brought schools, libraries, churches and the press into the picture. An Advisory Board was set up.

The response was phenomenal. Within three months Jacket Library books were bought by the hundreds of thousands in drug stores and department stores and on news stands. Churches, hospitals and prisons bought them in quantities. Books were sold to school children for ten cents. Thirty-five hundred were sent to one New York high school in one day. One clothing firm bought 10,000 copies of Tom Sawyer and gave them away as premiums to purchasers of rompers! Fifty thousand found their way into the C.C.C. camps. Fifty thousand more were sent by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Latin American countries.

Publishers who had been skeptical of the undertaking called it the "craziest organization in the world." But the work went on. The Foundation has now begun to publish original works by contemporary authors. The new series are in cloth covers, and sell for 25¢. "Brass Tacks" by David Cushman Coyle has been reprinted in many editions and it is estimated that this little book has been read by several million people. Books by Arthur E. Morgan, President of Antioch College and now of T.V.A., John W. Studebaker, Office of Education, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C., Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Harold G. Moulton, President of the Brookings Institution, have been released in editions of one hundred thousand copies.

Thus an idea generated in a college classroom has grown to tremendous proportions. Hundreds of thousands of good books have gone into communities where books could not be bought before. It is significant from a recreational point of view that most of these are books that people read just for the love of reading. The recreative and cultural values of such reading by people young and old, many of whom never had owned such books before, are beyond all computation.

The effort of these young people of the Foundation, dedicated to the task of promoting the reading of good books for greater numbers of our population at a price within the reach of all, will live on in the lives of those whom they serve and in the growing enrichment of the cultural life of America.

New Publications in the Leisure Time Field

Play Streets and Their Use for
Recreational Programs

By Edward V. Norton, M.A. A. S. Barnes and Company,
New York. $1.00.

T

HERE HAS

NEVER been a compilation available on street play, its origin and historical background, the experiments which have been made in a number of cities, the method of organization, and successful forms of activities which may be used. Mr. Norton has performed this much needed service and he has given us, in addition, the results of his own experiences in developing play streets under the sponsorship of the play street project of the WPA. Recreation workers will be particularly interested in the discussion of the adaptation of activities of various types to street play.

TH

The Abingdon Party Book

By Ethel Owen. The Abingdon Press, New York. $1.00. HE AUTHOR, well known as a writer of books on social recreation, has included in this volume three of her party books-A Book of Original Parties; Parties That Are Different; The Happy Party Book-together with some new parties. The result is a volume of more than thirty-five parties all characterized by originality. Sketches and illustrations throughout the book with eight color inserts make clear the ideas and suggestions. The parties planned are such that they may be given in homes, schools, clubs and wherever people gather together for a good time.

101 Things for Little Folks To Do

By Lillie B. and Arthur C. Horth. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. $2.00.

T

O PROVIDE little children with simple occupations suitable for rainy days and holidays is the purpose of this attractively illustrated book. All the materials suggested for use in making things are those which as far as possible are easily obtainable in the home. Where material must be bought, the cost is little. The diagrams are selfexplanatory and the accompanying text provides simple instructions in simple language.

Youth Serves the Community

By Paul R. Hanna. D. Appleton-Century Company, Incorporated, New York. $2.00.

YOUTH

OUTH SERVES THE COMMUNITY is the introductory book to a series sponsored by the Progressive Education Association which is designed "to help teachers and other educational workers to do more thorough and effective work in the schools." This particular volume presents the results of a study of what children and youth have been doing to promote community welfare in this country and abroad. It describes a great variety of successful projects in which children and youth have participated and which have had educational value to the individual and at the same time have made significant contributions to social betterment. Recreation workers will

be especially interested in the chapters on "Youth Contributes to Public Safety"; "Youth Contributes to Civic Beauty"; "Youth Contributes to Civic Arts."

Ten Good Parties

Compiled by Miriam J. Williams. The Farmer's Wife Magazine. St. Paul, Minnesota. $.10.

TEN

EN GOOD PARTIES "that are fun”—parties ranging from a New Year's party to a gypsy picnic-make up this attractive booklet. Another pamphlet on parties emanating from the same source is Children's Parties, by Myrtle J. Trachsel (10 cents) in which suggestions are offered for party plans, decorations, games and activities, and refreshments. In addition to these helpful booklets, The Farmer's Wife Magazine has issued a number of bulletins of interest to recreation workers. These include Books for Boys and Girls, with descriptive matter (five cents); Books Worth Reading (five cents); MoneyMaking Plans for Women's Organizations (five cents); How to Organize and Carry on a Club (10 cents); The Puppet Theater (10 cents), and Good Home Talent Plays compiled by Edna L. Waldo (five cents).

RECE

"Handy II"--Kit Q

Big Times in Small Spaces. Edited by Lynn Rohrbough. Cooperative Recreation Service, Delaware, Ohio. $.25. ECREATION LEADERS will welcome this revised material on Games and Stunts for Crowded Places, which offers a number of suggestions for the leader who is faced with the necessity of providing activities for an audience which has attended another session and which has been seated for an hour or more. Mr. Rohrbough offers game material and stunts for which some advance preparation may be made and other material which may be planned for at a moment's notice.

The Coaching of Soccer

By Hubert E. Coyer. W. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia. $2.00.

MR.

R. COYER offers many tested suggestions in his book which will prove especially helpful in teaching the fundamentals of soccer, developing team play and sound judgment, and in utilizing playing material to the best advantage. The technique of each skill required is discussed, together with its uses, advantages and disadvantages. A particularly helpful feature of the book is its illustrations. Each technique for playing the ball or the opponent, and each defensive and offensive team formation is clearly pictured.

Social Treatment in Probation
and Delinquency

Pauline V. Young, Ph.D. McGraw-Hill Book Company,
Inc., New York. $4.00.

TH

"HIS IS A BOOK ON METHOD-a most thorough and comprehensive study of the factors involved in any case

of delinquency. The author citis a few typical cases of

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