McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson XLIII · Part 5: Work, wonder and the world

47. The Winter King, by Hannah Flagg Gould

Goal: Your child reads a dialogue poem between a person and a little bird and explains the bird's cheerful answer.

⏱ 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 poem in which a speaker worries about a small bird in the winter storm. The bird, which calls itself the Winter-king, answers cheerfully, "Pee, dee, dee!" Definitions follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    The new words are at the end of the lesson, under Definitions. The small number in front of each word is the paragraph or verse where it is used. Read them together before the lesson. A few of them:

    Monitor, one who warns of faults.

    Oracle, a wise sentence or decision.

    Unconscious, not knowing, not perceiving.

    Ask your child to find two of these words in the lesson and read the sentence each one is in.

  2. Read it aloud

    Read the poem aloud to your child first, then read it together as a dialogue: you read the worried speaker and your child reads the bird. It begins:

    Oh! what will become of thee, poor little bird?

    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 the bird eating?

    SayHow does it keep its bare feet warm?

    SayWhy does the speaker call the bird a "monitor"? What does the bird teach?

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

  4. Tell it back

    Your child retells the conversation in prose: what the person asked and what the bird answered.

  5. Copywork

    Your child copies the bird's lesson as verse:

    A very small portion sufficient will be,

    If sweetened with gratitude. Pee, dee, dee!

  6. Words to learn

    Learn: flitting, vesture, monitor, oracle, muttering, unconscious, cluster. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.

Afterwards

Watch for small birds in winter. What do they find to eat?

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