The Project Gutenberg EBook of Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten, by
Emilie Poulsson

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Title: Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten

Author: Emilie Poulsson

Illustrator: L. J. Bridgman

Release Date: March 24, 2008 [EBook #24912]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FINGER PLAYS-NURSERY, KINDERGARTEN ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Music
transcribed by Linda Cantoni. This e-book was created from
a 1971 reprint published by Dover Publications, Inc., New
York.

[Transcriber's Note: The original book contains illustrations of the
hand gestures for the finger plays. In this plaintext e-book, the
gestures are described in brackets unless they are explained in, or
are obvious from, the original.]

FINGER PLAYS

FOR NURSERY AND KINDERGARTEN

BY

EMILIE POULSSON

[Illustration]

_Music By_

CORNELIA C. ROESKE

_Illustrations By_ L.J. BRIDGMAN

[D. Lothrop Company
Boston
1893]

[Illustration: "WHAT THE CHILD IMITATES, HE BEGINS TO
UNDERSTAND."--_Froebel._]

PREFACE.

"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 motion of fishes in the water
and his sympathy with fishes is quickened. Let him reproduce the
activities of farmer, 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."

In all times and among all nations, finger-plays have been a delight
of childhood. Countless babies have laughed and crowed over
"Pat-a-cake" and other performances of the soft little hands; while
children of whatever age never fail to find amusement in playing

"Here is the church,
And here's the steeple,
Open the doors,
And here are the people!"

and others as well known.

Yet it is not solely upon the pleasure derived from them, that
finger-plays depend for their _rai