When a child is ill his Father not only can but should be an active participant in the child's recreational activities. Your child will benefit from his fathers actual help and will also derive much emotional security from his interest. In addition, Fathers contribution of ideas and imagination will be a strengthening force for Mother and others in the family. Father himself will benefit, for by becoming absorbed in his child's activities, he will be relieved of some of the tensions he is under when there is illness in the family.

Father can be an excellent playmate and companion. His place of business may be a gold mine of fascinating discarded materials which your child can adapt to his own uses. Sometimes extra or little needed equipment can be borrowed from Father's office for a short time-things that would be especially fun to use for a while. Here are just a few hints for Father- he himself will think of many more.

288. Pencil stubs from the office are perfectly satisfactory for a child's use. Don't forget the colored pencils as well as the regular ones.

289. With pencil compass your child can make designs to be colored with crayons or paints.

290. Fun for both Father and child-make a jigsaw map of the United States! Use a large map and glue onto heavy cardboard. Cut along the state lines with a razor blade. For more difficult assembly, suggest that your child put it together blank side up and test his knowledge by trying to recognize each state from its shape.

291. Most offices have tabular sheets, carbon paper, onionskin paper, and colored file cards. A few of each of these items now and then would be a pleasant change for your child.

292. Typewriter paper, fined paper, wrapping paper, mimeograph pads, file folders, file separators, labels, tags, loose-leaf sheets are additional equipment worth keeping in mind.

293. Does Father's office use graph paper? Don't you remember how many hours of fun you had with this kind of paper? Mosaic patterns of two or more colors can easily be made. An older child can do scale drawings.

294. Blotters come in very attractive colors and vary from small to desk size. Let your child experiment with ink blots on these, or use the large ones for mounting pictures.

295. Many concerns have interesting sample books of such things as wallpaper, swatches of material, plastics, leather, floor coverings, etc. The child will enjoy just looking through these and may invent uses for them.

296. If Father works for a sign-painting company, a world of interesting bristol board scraps might be available.

297. How to use twelve large manila envelopes: Father could put various odds and ends of office materials into them and label one for each month of the year. This would make a nice "first-day-of-the-month" surprise.

298. Or he might bring Mother the envelopes into which she would put odds and ends of ribbons, note paper, toothpicks, scraps of cloth, etc. as the "surprise package" each month.

299. A good supply of paper clips is handy for a child to have available. Young children like to string them together in long chains. And did you know that they make excellent hooks for hanging Christmas tree ornaments? Just pull the large loop out.

300. Among other interesting office supplies are those small white gummed circles used to reinforce the holes punched in loose-leaf paper. It's fun for a child to paste these on colored paper to form designs.

301. Is there an old stamp pad or an out-of-date rubber stamp about the office? Filling up pages of scrap paper with such stamps is endless fun. It won't matter to the child that the stamp reads "Return of Postage Guaranteed" or carries the address of a building no longer in existence.

302. A stapling machine or paper punch serves as a novel toy. A younger child likes to staple together all the papers in sight and to make designs on paper with the punch. An older child would find these items invaluable in many practical ways.

303. For the child whose father is a doctor or dentist, the office contains fascinating throw-aways-tongue depressors, small bottles and tubes, the metal spools on which adhesive tape has been rolled, etc.

304. A collection of bolts and nuts of different sizes will keep almost any small boy occupied for a number of hours.

305. Junior would enjoy a screw board, which Father could make for him. Into a soft wooden board start driving 6 to 12 screws of different sizes. Screwing them all the way into the board is fascinating and also good practice for later and more ambitious projects.

306. Perhaps the man of the family has a workshop or works in a lumberyard. He can supply pieces of wood of various sizes and shapes; the more unusual the shape, the more interesting the results will be. Nonsplintering wood should be chosen and the edge smoothed with sandpaper. The wood can be painted and pictures painted on the sides. Use for building blocks, toy houses, doll furnishing, and so on. Or just let Junior have a free rein-hell use his ingenuity to the fullest extent.

307. Work in a travel bureau or one of the gasoline companies results in access to supplies of interesting advertising "literature" and posters which the child would enjoy.

308. Attention, newspaper men. Sheets of imprinted newsprint have an excellent surface for drawing and painting-and provide a big working space.

309. A soft piece of wood and a knife are all a child needs for wood-whittling. This is a good father-and-son pastime.

310. If Father is a home-movie fan, or works for a movie company, he could save all blank exposed film when editing. Film is fun for a child to play with and various useful items, such as comb cases or bookmarks, can be made from it. For example, a comb case can be made from 16mm. film by threading the perforations on the sides, and along one end, with bright wool or very narrow ribbon.

311. Burlap cross-stitching is easy. Father may not sew, but he can help plan the design, prepare the burlap, and mount it on a frame. When a burlap bag is used, it must be opened at the seams, then washed and dried thoroughly. After it is dry, mount on a wooden frame of suitable size so that the child can handle it easily. For the cross-stitching use odd bits of wool and a blunt-pointed needle.

312. Is Father a baseball or football fan? An excellent way for him to share his enthusiasm with a child confined to bed would be for him to help the youngster set up a scrapbook in which all news clippings about favorite teams or players could be kept, along with scores, batting averages, etc. It will be used as a record and reference book and will be a growing bond between father and child.

313. Father may be a "ham"-either radio or theatrical. He and Junior might build a radio; or they could put on "bedroom theatricals, " or work out a puppet theater.