12 Write the names of things in the schoolroom that are made of wood, iron, leather, cloth, glass.

13 Write the names of things in the room that are shaped like a circle; like a sphere; like a cube; like a 'cylinder. 14 Place upon the board a list of objects of which the pupils are to tell the color, as, the sky, snow, grass, roses, strawberries, etc. Require complete statements.

15 In the spring, when the birds are being studied, place the bird pictures in the chalk tray. On the blackboard above each one write its number. Require the children to write the name of each bird on paper and number the name to correspond with the picture.

16 The common flowers may be named in the same way. 17 Make outline pictures of birds which have a characteristic silhouette. Arrange these in the chalk tray and write a number on the board over each. Let the children write the name of each.

18 Hektograph outline pictures of a bird. Place the colored picture of this bird where all can see it easily. Let the children color the outline pictures, cut them out and mount them.

19 Bird books may be made by fastening together the pictures described in the previous paragraph. A short written description of the bird may be inserted opposite the picture. This description may be developed as a piece of class work and copied from the board by the children. 20 Make flower books similar to the bird books. preceding paragraphs (18 and 19).

See

21 Draw upon the board the outline of a bird. Write at one side the names of parts of the body, as, bill, head, wings, tail, breast, leg, feet, toes. The pupils may draw the bird and write each of the parts named where it belongs on the picture.

22 Write on the board a description of a bird, such as the following, omitting the name. Let the children read, copy, and write the name.

I am a bird.

I am black and white.

I have a red head.

I make my nest in a hole in a tree.

I have a strong bill.

I can drum with it.

I can run up the trunk of a tree.

I am a

23 Write similar descriptions of common flowers. Have the pupils read, copy and write the name.

24 or simple descriptions of birds similar to the above (Section 22) may be hektographed. Include a description of all the birds the children know by sight. Number each. Pass these to the children. They will read each and write the name of the bird, numbering the answer to correspond with the description. Go over the work in a later class period and correct the answers.

25 After the children have become familiar with the characteristic form of the common trees, cut a silhouette of each tree from black paper and mount it on paper of a light color. Place the pictures along the chalk tray and let the children write the names in order.

26 Let the children draw with colored crayons signs of spring and then write the name of the picture under each one. Suggested subjects are:

The same may be done for the things which indicate the approach of winter.

VIII Handwork

1 Trace on green paper, cut out and mount leaves of common trees. Paste the name of each leaf under it.

2 Cut flowers freehand. Color them.

3

4

Cut birds freehand and color them.

When the first grade is learning a new consonant sound, let the second grade cut and color objects the names of which begin with that sound. For example, when his being learned, they may cut a hat, a house, a hen, etc. Take the best of these and mount them on one large sheet for the h page of the phonic chart to be used in the first grade. Write and print the letter h on the page. Have a like this made for each consonant.

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5 Cut pictures from magazines and make picture books for younger children. They may be made for Christmas gifts.

6 The children will enjoy helping their teacher collect stories suitable for first grade children. They may also collect pictures to illustrate them. The children should trim the stories and pictures neatly and paste them into books which they have made for this purpose, pasting the picture near the story it illustrates.

7 Since there is a need for children to make books for many different purposes in school, the children may very profitably practice designing covers to suit given topics. Cut designs of colored paper and mount them on the cover, or cut stencils and stencil the designs with colored crayons. However, this should not be done for seat work until several covers have been designed in class under the teacher's direction.

8 Names for the covers of books and for labeling posters are more attractive when the letters are cut from paper and mounted than when little children make letters with crayons or pencils. Some practice will be necessary to enable the children to cut letters that are correctly and well formed and of uniform size. Much of this practice may be done as seat work. Give the children strips of colored construction paper one inch wide. Print on the blackboard words which the children may cut. For titles of books all of the letters will be capitals. Each letter should be cut as high as the strip of paper is wide, one inch. This will insure uniformity in height of the letters. After cutting the letters which comprise a title, let the children mount them.

9 Make original posters.

10 Make paper dolls. See suggestions in First Grade Seat Work, XI, 5. The second grade will be able to make more elaborate dresses than were made by the first grade.

11 Take sheets of cardboard 9" x 9", and with a punch make holes at equal distances apart all over the cardboard. The children may place pegs in the holes to form borders or designs.

12 Let the children cut squares, circles and triangles out of colored paper. Make borders and designs with them

yellow. Mount the swimming ducks on the lake and the flying ducks on blue border.

This border is suitable for the return of the birds in the spring, or for fall decoration, mounting them on blackboard running north and south and placing the ducks in position, flying to the north or south as desired.

T

E. J. T.

HERE was once a teacher, Miss A, who had taught the fourth grade in the same building for a great many years. During those years she was considered a very thorough, efficient teacher. Her pupils were always, seemingly, well prepared for the next grade and ready to go on with the advanced work.

There came to the same building a young teacher of two or three years' experience. She had been trained in one of the best normal schools of the East. Her children developed wonderfully in initiative and independent thinking and her work was highly approved. The class was passed on at the end of the year to Miss A's room.

At the end of the first week with her new class Miss A went to the principal with the complaint that the children were not prepared and insisted that several of them be demoted. An investigation followed, during which it developed that Miss A had based her decision on the child's ability to answer the stereotyped questions in her note books. These questions were the accumulations of her years of experience. Her geography note-book contained every question that a fourth grade child could possibly be expected to answer. Her children were thoroughly drilled in these questions and answers. Then again, she had a list of every form of concrete problem in arithmetic. These her children were taught to solve mechanically, one by one, to the end of the list. They were then reviewed, the figures alone being changed. In all office tests and examinations her averages were very high. Thus she had taught for years and years. She had never given a development lesson. Her whole method of teaching had been memorizing from beginning to end. And she got away with it.

Not many teachers overdo the memory work to such an extent as this; nevertheless, purely memory exercises

might memorize the names, locations, industries and products of all the principal cities of the United States and not know very much about our country. Such facts might be entirely meaningless.

On the other hand, if the material were to be organized about some central thought, how interesting and vital the work might become! Instead of a sum of memorized facts, but slightly related, the child would have a vital grasp of some phase of the geography of our country.' Suppose, for instance, we take one of our grain productswheat. Children are interested in knowing how wheat is raised and how flour is made from the wheat. Then they must know what kind of soil, climate, etc., is required for its growth, and where such conditions are found. They must find the great wheat producing regions; compare latitude, climate, soil, etc. The great flour mills and grain elevators will be found in the large cities in the center of wheat producing regions. Then the shipping of the flour brings in means of transportation and distribution and export trade. Let the children get as much as possible of this information from books, pictures and from their parents.

They are now in actual possession of many geographical facts acquired by their work: the climate, rainfall, soil, surface, names and locations of cities and rivers of a large area of the United States. Something of the industries, trade and transportation of the same area has been learned. All of which has been organized under the topic of wheat.

A list of isolated facts means nothing to a child, but the same facts closely related to a central idea have a valuable and definite meaning. After studying several products in this manner nearly every important fact about our country will have been learned, and having mastered these facts by the law of association of ideas he will be quite certain to retain them.