Make Tom, The Piper's Son Run!

       The many little Mother Goose rhymes, of which "Tom, the Piper's Son" is one, were not written by Mother Goose at all originally. They were composed by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault, who lived in the latter part of the Seventeenth Century. He had children of his own, and they delighted in getting him to tell them stories. After a while, when he was an old man it occurred to him that other children might like to hear his stories too, so he write them down and dedicated the book to the royal children of France. In order to make them interesting to these children he pretended that his own youngsters had written the tales.

"Here is Tom, the Piper's son, with a bit of string you can make him run.
And unless he runs away too soon, he'll dance if you play a little tune."

Directions:

1. Click directly on the image to download the largest possible file.
2. Print the image out in a program like WORD, extending the boarders out so that it may be printed as large as possible.
3. Print then cut out the pieces of Tom and his pig.
4. Mount the parts of the figure onto cardboard.
5. Color the hat and buckles yellow and the checks of the suit blue.
6. Make the trimming, tie a orange ribbon on the hat.
7. Stripe the stocking with bright colors.
8. With a strong thread fasten the arms to the body and with another the legs to the body.
9. Tie a piece of elastic to use as a string to run through the figure at the point marked "x"
10. Fasten the end of the elastic to a chair or something solid and by holding the end of the string you can make the figure run or dance.