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A Few Elementary School Figures

When I was a child in elementary school (in the early 1970's), string-figure-making fads occasionally swept over the playground. Here are the one-player figures that I remember from those fads:

• Cup and Saucer
• Scissors, & Witch's Broom (1)
• Witch's Broom (2)
• Crow's Feet
• Jacob's Ladder, & Cat's Whiskers
• String Off the Fingers (a trick)
• String Through the Neck (a trick)

There were also a couple of two-player figures: Cat's Cradle (done exactly as described in [Jayne 1906], except that Jayne's "Clock" stage was not known), and See-Saw or Teeter-Totter, which was the same as Pa-hi-o-lo; a saw from the Hawaii section of the Jayne's Finished-Pattern-Only page.

This list might not be exhaustive, but it's close - our playground repertoire was small, and endlessly repeated.

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