Vintage Children's Party Invitation Instructions

INVITATIONS

First of all, for the invitations. Choose your prettiest note paper, and don’t forget to write very plainly the date of the party. If you are just going to have a little afternoon tea, you can simply write,

Dear Daisy,—

“Will you come to my house to tea on Friday afternoon, June sixth, at three o’ clock? I hope you can.

“Lovingly,
“Dorothy.

“19 Elm Street.
“June first.”

Or if you are going to have a larger party, you can write:

“Miss Dorothy Manners requests the pleasure of your presence at her home on Friday afternoon, June sixth, from four until eight o’clock.

“19 Elm Street.
“June first.”

Be sure to send your invitations in time for your friends to write replies. Mother will need to know just how large a birthday cake to bake, and how much ice cream to freeze.

All free to use and in public domain. From: Project Gutenberg's When Mother Lets Us Give a Party, by Elsie Duncan Yale, 1909.

If you have a party and don’t bother mother,

I'm sure she'll allow you to soon have another

Free Online: Five Little Peppers,The Stories Polly Pepper Told by Margaret Sidney

Newly available. Click here

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Early Elementary New Year's Day Worksheet Freebie

The entire lesson is here, but she is offering these two pages free. Just right click on the images of the pages and save.

The first worksheet needs a comma added after "Greece"in the fourth paragraph. I'm using these with a first grade student, and we'll expand upon this information with books, including a discussion about luck from a Christian perspective.

Also see vintage children's text: Yule-tide in Many Lands, free to read online or download here.

Dutch Bedtime Stories

I found this story book online, Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks by William Elliot Griffist at Project Gutenberg.com. Read here or download, free and in public domain. We have been reading tales from this book the last few nights - delightful! 

Free Classic Young Children's Fairy Tales for Bedtime Reading

The Rainbow Book of Fairy Tales for Six-Year-Olds by Lisa Ripperton

This is a compilation of vintage stories circa 1924, not dumbed down, full of rich language for children's ears, but also easy to comprehend for a young child, especially if read with affect.

Last night, I was able to read three as bedtime stories without my first grader getting antsy, although she did fall asleep during Rumpelstiltskin, and what better way to drift off to sleep! The font is nice and large for tired momma eyes. You can turn down the lights and read this book on a laptop. There are no pictures, just text.

There are many more free ebooks to browse at this site as well.

Mushrooms of America: Edible and Poisonous(Free E-book)

  Some mushrooms from my garden. :)

Title    Mushrooms of America: Edible and Poisonous
Editor    Julius Auboineau Palmer
Publisher    L. Prang & Co., 1885
See here for reading online and/or free download

A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens, An Anthology of English and American Christmas Tales, 1895

Unfortunately this book is no longer available via a PDF download at Google Books; however, you can read it on several devices. See the link for details; click on Read Book at the link. You can also read it online. I've switched the format to HTML, so you can right click on the image of the page to save individual pages to print or read later.

See here for contents and to read online, or save individual pages, or read via apps on your devices. Offered free at Google Books.

Free downloads at Project Gutenberg(just noticed this).

Vintage 1920's Fashion Advice for Young Women

Interesting 1928 vintage fashion book, "Appropriate Clothes for the High School Girl":

Suggestions for the Stout Figure

A girl may not only improve the appearance of her face and head by the proper use of line but she may do wonders with her figure, as well, if she knows how to properly design her dresses. A dress wonderfully becoming to a slender sylphlike girl may become a tragedy on her plump classmate. Every girl should understand her physical make-up as thoroughly as she does her disposition, with its strong points and its weaknesses. She should know the kind of line she may wear successfully in her dresses, and the colors that are most becoming to her and the types of materials most suitable for her.

The stout girl should carefully avoid a design in a dress that is too cut-up or complicated. Tunics, unless long and scant, are unfortunate usually and the interest created by trimming about the waist line or elaborate belts should never be indulged in by the stout girl.

Length-producing lines should always be planned and light or colored collars should always be designed so that interest will not be created out towards the sides of the figure, creating width, but down the center front instead.

Contrasting shoes and stockings not only cut from the height of the figure but help to accent the feet and ankles of the wearer. The girl who wears white shoes with her dark dress states, by so doing, that she considers her feet well worth public consideration.

Contrasting materials for sleeves or elaborate cuffs or pockets will add width to any figure.

The designs in the accompanying illustration are most suitable for the older school girl when made up of wool or linen materials.

I may safely recommend this type of line in design for the girl of superfluous weight.

I always find these vintage fashion books interesting as they come from a time when my grandmothers were young girls. Both are passed away now, but the memories are saved in old pictures.

Download link here from Project Gutenberg.

Free Downloads for Movie and Book: Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Review from Internet Archives:

As the third screen adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's popular novel(click to free copy), it is an avalanche of sweetness and sentimentality only '30s Hollywood could pull off without having audiences run from theatres in search of insulin. One of the reasons why is this amazing cast of superb character actors (in order of appearance): Una O'Conner, Jessie Ralph, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson, C. Aubrey Smith, Constance Collier, E.E. Clive, plus many more. The title role is played by Freddie Bartholomew, a child actor much loved by mothers and grandmothers, and thoroughly detested by us kids growing up on the lower west side of Manhattan. Delores Costello is his widowed, self-sacrificing mother. Mickey Rooney has a small but important role.

A nine-year-old Brooklyn boy living in genteel poverty, is told he's heir to a British earldom. This necessitates his move to England to live with the aristocratic grandfather he's never known. (Have the first hankie ready for Bartholomew's farewell scenes. Save the second hankie for moisture-inducing scenes to come.) A sudden turn of events puts everything in jeopardy. Nevertheless the plucky lad eventually triumphs. The large cast has no weak links. However the great (sir) C. Aubrey Smith turns in the outstanding performance as Bartholomew's misanthropic grandfather.

Excellent production values, thoroughly professional camera work and skillful direction designed to wring out every last drop of sentiment, results in industrial-strength schmaltz you will either love or hate. I love it.

See here for better quality movie download and viewing. Smaller sized download here. Free and in public domain.

Dragonfly Printable Nature Study and Language Arts Resources

"...the dragon-flies remain not only entirely harmless to man, but in reality are his friends and allies in waging war against flies and mosquitoes; they are especially valuable in battling mosquitoes since the nymphs, or young, of the dragon-fly, take the wrigglers in the water, and the adults, on swiftest wings, take the mosquitoes while hovering over ponds laying their eggs." ~ Dragonflies and Damselflies By Anna (Botsford) Comstock.

The Insect World: A Reading Book of Entomology, 1902

The Butterfly Vivarium; or, Insect Home, 1858

"ALL you children who live in the country, or spend summers in the country, and some of you city children who do neither, must have seen dragon-flies. You may have called them "Devil's Darning Needles," or "Mosquito-hawks," and you may have heard very absurd stories of their sewing up people's ears! The stories are entirely false, for the beautiful dragon-flies have nothing with which to "sew up" ears or anything else!

I have seen them darting about the streets of New York, Boston, and Chicago, catching the mosquitoes on the wing. I have seen them in many smaller cities and towns, and in the country and by the sea, they abound.

Why do I tell you about them if they are so common? Because, like many common things, they are very interesting when one knows all about them,— or nearly all—and the flying about in the air and catching mosquitoes for breakfast, dinner, and supper, are not nearly all of the life of a dragon-fly." ~ Primary Education, Dragonflies, 1898(Switch to plain text if print too small - upper right button at link)

Fiction, The Fiddler Crab and the Dragonfly, 1901

Little Folks in Feathers and Fur, and Others in Neither, The Little Masker, 1880

The Insect Folk, Our Pretty Dragonflies, 1903.

Good Stories for Great Holidays, The Water Drop,1914

Harper's Fourth Grade Reader, The New Life, 1888

Stories of Woods and Fields, The Dragon Fly, 1902

More later....

Printing Tips: Right click on the image of the pages at the links, or download entire book. All are free and in public domain.

Crafts:

Nature craft dragonfly

Business card dragonfly plane

August Grasshoppers

We got beaned by these today on a nature hike through some wetlands . They were everywhere along the path, and I dared not open my mouth until we got to the forest at the other side of the wetlands.

An interesting and very detailed book on grasshoppers which I found free and in public domain at Google Books:

Grasshopper Land by Margaret Morely, 1909. There is an interesting section on Eastern Locusts with Biblical references to locusts - locusts of the Old Testament.

Children's Summer Ebook Reading: Classic Tales and Old-Fashioned Stories

Young Folks Treasury, 1909.

Free and in public domain, short and long children's old fashioned stories and classics with color illustrations. I like these free public domain Project Gutenberg books because you have the option of copying and pasting only the stories that you want to print. There are a good number of download options as well: Kindle, EPUB, HTML, etc.

World Stories Retold for Modern Boys and Girls

"World stories retold for modern boys and girls: one hundred and eighty-seven five-minute classic stories for retelling in home, Sunday School, children's services, public school grades, and "the story-hour" in public libraries, with practical suggestions for telling."

A 1914 free public domain book -a super story telling book for ages pre-K through age twelve.

See here for an alphabetical list of stories. Book is downloadable as a PDF, and pages are printable by right clicking on the images of the pages.

Grades K-12 Free Printable Short Classic Literature Excerpts with Worksheets and Audio(Human-read MP3)

Click on banner, grades K-12 available. My son has been working through the chapter excerpts from Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz(seventh grade). This is a little break from our regular curriculum, and these free literature arts printables are just perfect for a change of pace.

I've added the banner to my sidebar.

Printable Short Story and Paper Dolls: Little Journeys to Faraway Lands - Norway

From Primary Plans, February 1909. Click here to print story, pages 16-17. Right click on image of the book pages and and "save as". Read-a-loud for the very young, readable by older children.

Norwegian paper dolls to color here.

Young Child's Vintage Saint Valentine's Day Short Stories(Theme: Kindness)

This is a really sweet story with kittens and forest animals who treat Elaine, who is sick, to a very special Valentine's Day.

Print or save by right clicking on the images of the pages at the links. The book is in public domain and is a downloadable PDF as well.

Elaine's Valentine
"Tell It Again" Stories
By Elizabeth Thompson and Emerson Dillingham
1911

Here is another from an easy reader: The Story of Saint Valentine.

Easy Homeschool Learning for the Preschool/Kindergarten Crowd: Snails, Chicks, and Ladybugs

Lately, I've been greeted every morning with requests for snail related learning materials(with a sprinkling of lady bugs and chicks). I think someone is ready for spring!

The internet(Google image search) had a lot of good free printables. I watercolored the one with the hen and chicks; my daughter(age five) did the others, and cut them out herself(mostly). She decided they needed glitter as well.

The library had some early learning books on snails, including what happens to bugs and snails in winter. Click on picture to enlarge and see titles.






An on-hand basket of shells(collected and dollar store), and a shell identification book from my adolescence, has filled my daughter's day with many hours of fun. She has named the snail shells and made a house for them. They even had a picnic with a watercolored free printable of lettuce which I shrunk to wallet size with Picasa.

Snails mentioned in the Bible:

"As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away." ~ Psalm 58:8

The Snails of all species in the Holy Land are in the habit, not of hybernating in winter, as they do in our colder climate, but of shutting themselves into their shells, and remaining dormant during the dry season. Few Snails can remain long in an active state without moisture. In order to prevent the evaporation of the moisture of the body, all those molluscs which have a thin or semi-transparent shell secrete themselves in dry weather under stones, like the shell-less snails or slugs, or else among moss and under leaves... The chinks and crevices of the limestone rocks are especially favourite hiding-places for many species, while those of the deserts, for instance, where they can find no such screen from the sun's rays, are provided with solid, colourless, and lustreless shells of enormous thickness, the calcareous substance of which prevents evaporation as they hang with their mouths glued on to the desert shrubs.

But, notwithstanding the care they take to secrete themselves, the heat often does dry them up, either by a long-continued drought, or by the sun's rays penetrating to their holes. Thus we find in all parts of the Holy Land myriads of snail-shells in fissures, still adhering by the calcareous exudation round their orifice to the surface of the rock, but the animal of which is utterly shrivelled and wasted—'' melted away,' according to the expression of the Psalmist. It is very probable that this circumstance has supplied the metaphor for the passing away of the wicked in the passage quoted above. ~ The Natural History of the Bible(free and in public domain)

Easy and fun delight driven learning! And I didn't have to spend a dime.

A few resources we used:

Google: snail coloring pages, mazes, and worksheets; and look here.

Snail identification and external anatomy page here.

Vintage images to color here.

Snails(symbol of the Immaculate Conception)in Christian art. It was thought that snails reproduced asexually.

Saints and Snails: Saint Lydia
A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and stay." So she persuaded us.
—Acts 16:14-15 World English Bible

and Saint Jerome

Free Young Children's Music History Literature Unit: Chopin

From Project Gutenberg: Chopin, The Story of the Boy Who Made Beautiful Melodies, by Thomas Tapper, 1917. Free and in public domain.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

THIS book is one of a series known as the CHILD'S OWN BOOK OF GREAT MUSICIANS, written by Thomas Tapper, author of "Pictures from the Lives of the Great Composers for Children," "Music Talks with Children," "First Studies in Music Biography," and others.

The sheet of illustrations included herewith is to be cut apart by the child, and each illustration is to be inserted in its proper place throughout the book, pasted in the space containing the same number as will be found under each picture on the sheet. It is not necessary to cover the entire back of a picture with paste. Put it only on the corners and place neatly within the lines you will find printed around each space. Use photographic paste, if possible.

After this play-work is completed there will be found at the back of the book blank pages upon which the child is to write his own story of the great musician, based upon the facts and questions found on the previous pages.

The book is then to be sewed by the child through the center with the cord found in the enclosed envelope. The book thus becomes the child's own book.

This series will be found not only to furnish a pleasing and interesting task for the children, but will teach them the main facts with regard to the life of each of the great musicians—an educational feature worth while.

More by Thomas Tapper here: Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Schubert, and Beethoven

Printable Vintage Teddy Roosevelt Essay: The American Boy

"The American Boy", by Theodore Roosevelt, published in St. Nicholas(magazine), May, 1900. Can be copied and pasted or found here in Pres. Roosevelt's book, The Strenuous Life. Right click on image of the pages to save or print.

Excerpt: "No boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy work, as a rule, means study. Of course there are occasionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advocate blindness because some blind men have won undying honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons—in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play outside of school will not find any need for horse-play in school. While they study they should study just as hard as they play foot-ball in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, 'Work while you work; play while you play.' "

Free Columbus Day Vintage History Story

"Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on !' " They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until, at last, the blanched mate said : "Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God, from these dread seas, is gone. Now speak, brave Adm'r'l ; speak and say — " He said : "Sail on ! sail on ! and on !" They sailed ! They sailed ! Then spake the mate : "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.‎"
~ From Discovery of America(Columbus), Great Inventions and Discoveries, a vintage textbook for young readers, 1911.
To print and/or save, follow the link and right click on the images of the pages(See Table of Contents, begins on page 92). The entire book is downloadable as well.  Free and in public domain.

I just love old textbooks for younger children. The language is so beautiful, and at times history is romanticized, but what better way to get children interested in history. There is time enough in the later years to learn that "history is written by the victors".

For younger children - Cut and paste, Story of  Columbus in pictures.Click on image to enlarge.