Merry Songs & Games For Use in Kindergarten

90 pieces for children with lyrics & sheet music - online songbook

	PREFACE
	HE Kindergarten aims to reach the thought of the child through his affections and sympathies, and it excites these by appealing to his activities. It may be defined as an organized sequence of experiences, through which the child grows into self-knowledge, clear observation and conscious grasp of the whole circle of his relationships. Realizing a hint of Goethe's, in the Pedagogic Province, to the effect that Music should be the center and starting point of education, the Method of the Kindergarten circles around the Songs and Games. The characteristic feature of these Songs and Games, considered as a whole, is that they express the same idea in Words, Melody and Motion, appealing thus to the thought, feeling and activity of the child. But while sharing this one common feature, the Games fall into several distinct classes. Thus we have pure move­ment Games, which emphasize the Gymnastic element,—games adapted to develop and strengthen the various senses,— games which stimulate thought by piquing curiosity,—and finally, the Representative Games, whose aim is to make the child, from his cradle, a partaker, in the truest sense, of the life of Nature and of Man. The greater number of Froebel's own games belong to this last class, and of them alone I wish to speak. What the child imitates, says Froebel, he begins to understand. Let him represent the flying of birds and he enters partially into the life of birds. Let him imitate the rapid movement of fishes in the water, and his sympathy with the fishes is quickened. Let him reproduce the activities of Farmer and Miller and Baker, and his eyes open to the meaning of their work. In one word, let him reflect in his play the varied aspects of life, and his thought will begin to grapple with their significance. If there be any truth in this idea, it follows that the more varied the reflections of life in his plays the wider will be the reach of the child's awakened interests and sympathies. To mirror the totality of childish experiences and relationships was the aim of Froebel in his " Mother Play and Nursery Songs," a book which, in his own opinion, was the most complete embodiment of his educational idea. " He who understands what I mean by these Songs," said he in a conversation with the Baroness Marenholz, "knows my inmost secret." It is, therefore, a rather significant fact in the history of his system that this book has never been largely used, and that comparatively few of the Games it contains are played in the Kinder­gartens, either of Europe or America. About three years ago, we began in St. Louis a very careful study of the "Mother Play and Nursery Songs." Taking up each Song separately, we aimed to read in it the real meaning of Froebel; and comparing the different Songs, we tried to abstract their unifying idea. At the same time, different Directors experimented with the Songs in their respective Kindergartens, in order to test their influence upon the children. Two facts soon became evident:—first, that in order to the successful practical adaptation of the Songs, the Music to which they were set would have to be modified or entirely changed ;—second, that a more complete method of interpretation, by gesture, would have to be discovered and systematized. During the past year both these results have been realized by Mrs. Hubbard, Director of the Eads Kindergarten, and through her unselfish effort the children in all the St. Louis Kindergartens now enjoy playing the greater part of Froebel's own games in what, I am sure, is Froebers own spirit. She has found Music wonderfully adapted to reflect the thought of the plays, and has translated both words and melody into the language of gesture. She has inspired the other Directors with her own enthusiasm, and has shown them how to find in these little plays a means for the true development of the children. To them particularly she now offers this collection of Songs, with the hope that through it the results attained may be made permanent. To the Games taken from the "Mother Play and Nursery Songs," she has added a number of others, all, however, inspired by its spirit; and I have no hesitation in saying that I consider her collection of Songs decidedly the host which has yet appeared in English, and one which no Kindergartener can use without soon wondering how she ;ver did without it. SUSAN E. BLOW.