Sept. 30.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 3377

The care of garden plots, and the use in the Kindergarten of school gardens and class-room plants; school excursions.
(ii.) Animal Life: The general characteristics, habits, and life-histories of the following:—
(a.) Cat, dog, cow, horse, sheep, rabbit, mouse.
(b.) Fowl, pigeon, sparrow, starling, thrush.
(c.) Fish and frog.
(d.) Bee, moth, butterfly, house-fly, spider.
(e.) Earth-worm, slug (or garden snail).
N.B.—(a.) In both plant and animal life special attention is required to be given to natural environment, and to any notable adaptations of structure and habits to the general living-conditions. (b.) Sketches in illustration of answers will be regarded as essential.
(iii.) Earth and Sky Study (chiefly in connection with gardening and the needs of Plant and Animal Life):—
(a.) Water—its general properties and the importance of these to life.
(b.) The sun, sunlight, the variation in its strength throughout the year, and the effect of this on plant and animal life.
(c.) The earth—different kinds of soil and their varying power of holding water; the dependence of life on the soil.
(d.) The sky—observation of the sky, both by day and by night; and the reasons for the waxing and the waning of the moon. The identification of the following stars or star groups of the southern sky—the Southern Cross, the “Pointers” in the Centaur, the Milky Way, Orion, the Pleiades, Sirius, Canopus, and Achernar.

(3.) Kindergarten Principles.—Lives and work of Pestalozzi and Froebel. Effect of these on modern education. Froebel’s principles—their application and recent modifications. The principles, physical and mental, underlying educational handwork. The educational value of different kinds of handwork and their relation to other subjects in this connection.

(4.) Kindergarten Practice.—The provision made in the Kindergarten for the child’s development at successive stages between the ages of three and seven years by means of play, stories, verse, music, observation of natural surroundings, and employments of various kinds; outdoor and indoor games of various forms suitable to young children, and their adaptation to educative purposes. The means of developing ideas of number, size, weight, and of training in language. The Kindergarten room and its furnishing, its toys, pictures, &c. School programmes of correlated work. Preparation of simple materials and apparatus for lessons.

(5.) Class Teaching.—Candidates will be expected to occupy a class of children of any age between three and seven years for forty-five minutes in a manner suited to their stage of development and with due regard to their need for variety.

The following, of which (a) and (b) are compulsory, are suggested subjects from which a selection might be made to occupy the time allotted. Notes must be prepared showing the proposed programme:—
(a.) Giving a lesson—e.g., a Nature lesson, or a lesson on a trade occupation, &c., or some other feature of the child’s environment.
(b.) Telling a story.
(c.) Conducting a game.
(d.) Superintending the children’s play with such material as sand, building-blocks, or with any of Froebel’s “Gifts.”
(e.) Superintending the children’s employment in any definite form of handwork.

The class of children may be changed for one of a different age in the course of the forty-five minutes allowed.

(6.) Educational Handwork (I and II).—The examination in this subject will aim at testing (i) the candidates’ own skill, and (ii) their ability to guide the work of children between the ages of three and seven in a progressive series of exercises in accordance with the underlying principles of educational handwork. The examination will be essentially of a practical character, but may include a certain amount of written work bearing upon the application of any tests that may be set, the choice of material and the reasons for choice under varying conditions, the nature of the work that may reasonably be expected from children of different ages, and the relation to other subjects of the special work concerned.