Find a sugár maple if possible, and take your pupils to visit it. If on the school grounds, let them take paper and pencils along and draw it. Notice the size, shape, color of bark, and the marking of the bark. Notice the way in which the branches are fastened to the tree. Where there are short shoots growing up about the tree at the roots, let pupils notice the color of the twigs. Are they the same as on the tree?

Notice the number, color, covering and arrangement of the buds. When do the flowers come? Color, size, number, how arranged on twig. Seeds, shape, color, how distributed. (Two winged keys.) When does the sap begin to flow? How long does it flow?

SUGAR AND SUGAR MAKING.

Let pupils taste bits of maple sugar syrup and sap, and tell you what they can or have observed of the process of sugar making.

Show them cubes of loaf sugar and let them tell you the difference between it and the maple sugar. Show them a beet, and tell them of the little grains of sugar hidden in its juices, and of the work of the people who take the sugar out for us to eat. The beet may then be hollowed out, filled with water and suspended in the window that contains the March window garden.

Show pupils also the coarse brown sugar called sorgum sugar, and tell them that it was once the sap or juice of a plant called sugar-cane. Give an account of the process of extracting the juice from sugar-cane and boiling it until the water goes off in steam, leaving the sugar in kettles. Much of the cane and beet sugar comes from the warm countries in the south.

Let pupils tell you of the food they have eaten for breakfast which contained sugar from the beet, sugar-cane or maple

tree.

What dishes do we eat for dinner and supper that are sweetened with sugar? What sweets made of sugar do children like to buy at the store?

Sing, "The Sap Has Begun To Flow," Eleanor Smith's Song Book, No. 2.

The woods are still sleeping,

But grass is a peeping

From under the snow.
The swallows are coming,
The bees are a humming,

The sap has begun to flow!

The buds that were hidden

In brown coats are bidden

To break and let the world know.

The Ice-king is quaking

The spring-time is waking,

For sap has begun to flow!

STORIES.

"The Maple Tree's Children," Cyr's Fourth Reader. "The Sugar Camp," Cyr's Fourth Reader.

SEAT WORK.

Copy words upon paper and let pupils form sentences from them, and then use as reading; maple, tree, twig, flowers, leaves, gives, sugar, fuel, lumber, shade.

BLACKBOARD READING.

The maple tree gives lumber.
The maple tree gives fuel.
The maple tree gives sugar.
The maple tree gives potash.

The maple tree gives shade.

The maple tree gives homes to birds.

The maple tree gives lumber, fuel, sugar, potash, shade, and homes to birds.

Maple flowers are red.

Maple buds are red.

Maple leaves are red in spring

Maple twigs are red in spring.

LANGUAGE.

Questions are to be placed upon the board and pupils are to personate the maple twigs and answer, either orally or in written sentences on board or paper.

Who are you?

Where do you live?

What color is your bark dress?
What color are your flowers?
What color are your baby leaves?
When do your flowers come?
When do your leaves come?
When does your sap flow?
How does your sap taste.

DRAWING.

Draw maple tree. Cut a tree.

Draw maple twigs.

Illustrate the process of sugar making.

Draw the plants from which sugar is secured, the broomcorn, beet tree.

Draw articles of furniture made from maple wood.

Draw sugar buckets (cylinder), sugar kettles (hemispheres.)

BRUSH WORK WITH INK.

Have the children make silhouettes with brushes and ink. If you do not have water colors and brushes you can secure the brushes for five cents apiece. If these cannot be secured, use burnt matches, or wooden toothpicks. Explain how these may be transformed into brushes. How many ever chewed a stick of licorice until one end was something like a brush?

Show pupils the silhouettes on the cover of the Plan Book. They are pictures of the school children of the world-the American child leading. Let them paint a child with a broom in her hand and a sweeping cap on. Pupils may write on their papers the words "Sweeping Day" and then let the children illustrate. At another time paint a jar of pussy willows; a window with one or more pots of plants outlined against the panes; a tree with branches outlined against the sky.

FOURTH WEEK.

THE COW.

MORNING TALKS.

I am thinking of an animal that gives us something to eat for every meal in the day. It gives us drink, meat, cheese and something to spread on our bread. What is it? (Show children a picture of the cow, since some pupils will not be familiar with it.) Notice the heavy body, broad head, hollow horns, short legs, cloven hoofs.

Let the children tell you what they can about the cow and describe the picture. Where does it live? Where does it stay in winter? In summer? Is it glad to have spring come? Why? What is its winter food? (Hay, corn, bran mash, vegetables, salt.) What does it eat in summer? How does it eat? When the cow first nibbles the grass and hay it does not eat it but stows it away in a big bag inside her body. When the bag is full, the cow lies down to rest, and the food it has eaten comes up into the mouth, a little bit at a time, and is then chewed and eaten.

Who cares for the cow? What does the cow give in return for this care? How often does the farmer milk? Where is the milk kept? Who buys the milk from the farmer? Where does the milkman get it? Where do we get our milk? When does the milkman bring it? Think how early he must get up to milk the cows, or to get the cans of milk ready and bring them round to us. How many people had milk to drink for breakfast? What else did the cow give us for breakfast? (Butter, meat.) To whom must we go to buy these things? Where does the grocer get them?

What do we call the flesh of the cow? The flesh of the young cow? (Veal.) The fat is called tallow and is used for making soap, wagon grease and candles.