blankets
have a long nap.

[Sidenote: _Navajo patterns laid with tablets_]

The children will take pleasure in laying Navajo patterns with
triangular tablets, and then transferring the pattern to paper by
drawing and coloring, or by cutting and pasting in colors.

[Illustration: _A pattern for a Navajo blanket_]

Chapter Fourteen

SONGS, GAMES, AND STORIES

There are many beautiful songs which can be sung during the weaving.
Thomas Carlyle has said:

[Sidenote: _Songs and games lighten work_]

"Give us, O give us the man who sings at his work! He will do more in
the same time; he will do it better; he will persevere longer. One is
scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music, and the very
stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres."

[Sidenote: _Songs for the children_]

There are songs about the birds' nests, always pleasing to the little
folks, and doubly so when they have held in their own hands the
wonderful bit of weaving, so strong and yet so soft, woven by the
mother-bird for the baby-birds. Mrs. Spider is also very interesting
with her lace-like webs which are to be found even in well-regulated
schoolrooms, and the songs of the bleating sheep who give us their wool
fill every little heart with delight. Miss Poulsson's Finger Play, "The
Lambs," gives the restless fingers something to do and the "eight white
sheep all fast asleep" afford a chance for a good laugh over the "two
old dogs close by" (the thumbs). One has the opportunity, too, of
noticing whether the eight white sheep on the tiny hands are really
_white_ enough to do the weaving. A smiling allusion to some small
_black_ sheep will bring them back clean for the next session.

[Sidenote: _A weaving game_]

The following weaving game can be played in several ways. This extract
is from the "Kindergarten Guide," by Lois Bates: "Six children stand in
a row; a tall one at each end for the border of the mat and the other
four representing the strips. The child who is to be the weaver holds
one end of a long tape, while the other is fastened to the left shoulder
of the first child. The weaver weaves the tape in and out among the
children, placing the second row lower down. It will be easily seen that
the children who had it passed in _front_ of them in the first row, had
it _behind_ them in the second, and vice versa."

The following weaving song in the Walker and Jenks book can be sung
during the weaving