CORNELL 



R,ural ScKool Leaflet 



(FOR THE TEACHER) 



Published monthly by the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, from 

 September to May and entered as second-class matter September 30, 1907, at the Post Office at 

 Ithaca, New York, under the Act of Congress, of July 16, 1894. L. H. Bailey, Director 



ALICE G. McCLOSKEY, Editor 

 Professors G. F. WARREN and CHARLES H. TUCK, Advisers 



Vol. 2 ITHACA, N. Y., NOVEMBER, 1908 No. 3 



NOTES 



T Thanksgiving Time. This is the month of Thanks- 

 giving. We want to make the most of it with the 

 children in the rural schools. It is our own na- 

 tional holiday. As it comes at a time when every- 

 thing seems to be serene and to promise much in 

 the way of quiet and wholesome pleasure, much 

 can be done in the schoolroom to increase the 

 interest that children feel in Thanksgiving, and 

 to open up multitudes of ideas in connection with 

 the day. It is a time for history and literature, for poetry and song 

 and for a real touch with country life. 



Nature-Study Book. Many of the best nature-study lessons are those 

 which merely give the child an initial thought along country life sub- 

 jects. If too many facts are given, the best good of the lessons may 

 be defeated. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas time it might 

 be well to encourage the children to make a book for the schoolroom, 

 getting together all the knowledge that they can from their own obser- 

 vation of turkeys, geese, chickens, and the like. An ordinary blank 

 book might be used, letting each child add such information as he gets 

 afield. Selections from poems or prose literature might be added, or 

 any pictures that they care to cut from old newspapers and magazines. 

 Giving the children an opportunity to work things out for themselves 

 in this way will lead to hundreds of questions by means of which their 

 minds will grow. This will be much better for the younger boys and 

 girls than to try to have them get too many facts in set lessons each 

 day in the schoolroom. 



Poultry. As Thanksgiving approaches the teacher will find that the 

 young folks are interested in things about the farm home. It is a good 

 time for lessons on poultry because children are sure to associate the 



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