McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson XVI · Part 3: Courage, the sea and the frost

20. The Brown Thrush, by Lucy Larcom

Goal: Your child reads a lively poem with expression and explains why the thrush is so happy.

⏱ About 20 minutes · 6 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

A short poem: a brown thrush sings from its tree about its nest and eggs, and asks the children not to harm them. A note about Lucy Larcom comes first; Exercises follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. About the author

    The book's note says Lucy Larcom was born in 1826 and passed many years of her life as a factory girl at Lowell, Mass. It adds that she is now (in 1879) a well known writer of both poetry and prose.

  2. Read it aloud

    Read the poem aloud to your child first, then let your child read it. Let the voice be bright and quick, like a bird's song. It begins:

    There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree;

    He's singing to me! he's singing to me!

    Then have your child read it a second time, more smoothly: the first reading is for the meaning, the second for the sound and rhythm.

  3. Talk about it

    SayWhat is a thrush?

    SayWhy was the thrush so happy?

    SayDo you think she would have been happy if the little boy or girl had robbed the nest?

    Let your child look back at the page to find answers.

  4. Tell it back

    Your child tells, in prose, what the thrush is saying to the children.

  5. Copywork

    Your child copies these lines as verse, with the exclamation points:

    Hush! look! In my tree

    I'm as happy as happy can be!

  6. Words to learn

    Find the rhyming words in the first verse and learn to spell them: tree, me, see, be.

Afterwards

If you can, go outside and listen for birds. Try to find a thrush or a robin and watch what it does.

@teddyrookbook GitHub