The age-old pastime of cutting out pictures from magazines or commercial cutout books and pasting them into paper or cloth scrap books will entertain bored youngsters for periods which become shorter with repetition. There are several variations, however, which will often re-ignite flagging interest.

For girls, a doll house can be sketched on a large sheet of paper, with the various rooms open and unfurnished. It will then be the duty of the young housekeeper to select and cut out the required furniture and fixtures from magazines, catalogues and other sources to make her paper doll family comfortable. Boys usually take an interest in stocking a store, particularly a hardware store, or perhaps a workshop. Parallel lines are drawn over the counters for shelves, and mail order or other catalogues made available for cutting out the required stock to be pasted on the shelves and counters.

Newspaper

After dispatching telegrams and letters composed of cutout words and pictures as suggested in the preceding game of "Postman," interest may be aroused in the publication of a family newspaper. In order to inspire youthful editorial imagination, a sheet of white shelf paper can be ruled into three, four, or more vertical columns under an appropriate masthead, such as "THE JONES FAMILY EXAMINER. Sees all, knows all, and tells all. Issued now and then. Price: One smile."

In order to give impetus to the first edition, banner leads may be capitalized in the various columns, such as: "Dangers of Overpopulation (family dog has pups); "Athletic Events" (father's sprint for the 8.15 bus, or Junior's home run in the Sand Lot League); "Social News" (mother entertained the Ladies' Aid, or cook entertained Patrolman McGuiness with the last piece of cherry pie); "Weather Forecast: Clear, unless cloudy with rain." "Household Hints" can be clippings from the local paper or such startling advice as, "Shoveling snow (or mowing lawns) is bad for tender hands"; entries under "Special Menus" might give Mother a clue to Ye Editor's preferences.

It would be too tedious a process to clip out whole words to make up such a journal, but the reportorial department should be encouraged to furnish illustrations for its articles whenever possible.

Games

Many popular modern games are based, more or less, on the general principles of such old favorites as Parchesi, in that counters or men are advanced along a wandering trail of squares or circles beset by various obstacles, in accordance with numbers determined by the spin of an arrow or the throw of one or more dice. With a little imagination a homemade game of this type can be assembled from pasted cutouts linked by a trail of circles. The counters can be buttons, cardboard disks, or kernels of corn.

One of the easiest to make of this type of game might be called "Globe Trotters." Pictures of faraway countries or cities are cutout, then connected with other pictures showing the methods of transportation, such as automobile, train, steamer, airplane, or even ox-cart. The cutouts are then tentatively arranged on a large piece of wrapping or shelf paper. There must of course be a Start and a Finish or Home line, which may or may not be illustrated with cutouts. Now consider the means of transportation between pictures, and imagine some of the misadventures or fortuitous happenings which might befall. With these in mind draw a winding trail between the various points by using a dime or a nickel as a compass for the connecting trail of small circles. Label certain ones with such tribulations as "Detour, out of gas, dead battery, hot box, one hour late, snowbound, broken rudder, damaged propeller, boiler blew up, left engine conked, fog, crash landing, broken axle," and so on, then decide on penalties, such as forfeiture of a turn, or return to starting point or last town. Lucky spots may also be included where a player may advance more rapidly or be awarded an extra turn when, for example, the transportation "bypasses detour, arrives early due to following winds, or picks up a stranded traveler."

An interesting variation of such a game results when it is built around some experience such as a visit to grandpa's farm, a Scout hike, sightseeing in a nearby city, or a canoe or fishing trip. When snapshots are available such a game can be personalized to an extremely popular degree. Here again, the "scenario" of pictures is first laid out and then connected by the necessary trail of transportation circles or squares. These may include an auto ride with attendant flat tire or fines for speeding, or a train ride which had to lie over on a siding to let the express pass. At the farm, players may be chased by a bull, get caught in barbed wire, slip into the duck pond, fall from an apple tree, suffer a stomach ache after dinner, and fall asleep in the haymow. They may also help stack the hay, find a double-yolked egg, cany the milk pails, or turn the ice cream freezer for extra spaces or turns.

Advertising

Cut the brand name from well-known national advertisements of pictorial nature and require the correct names to be written in, after the pictures are pasted on paper.

Jigsaw Puzzles

If the magazine stock is thick enough, the selected picture can be scissored into irregular pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. Usually, however, it will be advisable to first paste the picture to a piece of light cardboard such as used in file folders.