McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXIV · Part 7: Lost and found

68. Annie's Dream

Goal: Your child reads a dream story that teaches about evaporation and frost, and explains what the water-sprites showed Annie.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 7 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 story: Annie Sinclair stays home to study a hard lesson in Natural Philosophy about evaporation, falls asleep, and dreams that water-sprites rise from a basin of water and become frost-sprites on the window. 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:

    Natural Philosophy, the study which teaches about the laws of matter in nature.

    Evaporation, the act of turning into vapor.

    Watersprite, a spirit or fairy living in the water.

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

  2. Read it aloud

    Your child reads the story aloud. Make the sprites' voices tiny and teasing. It begins:

    It was a clear, cold, winter evening, and all the Sinclairs but Annie had gone out for a neighborly visit.

  3. Talk about it

    SayWhat was Annie trying to learn?

    SayWhat happened to the water-sprites when the water was heated?

    SayWhat did they become on the cold window? What was their family name?

    SayWhat did the sprites mean by "Nothing hurts us; we merely change"?

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

  4. See it for real

    Put a little water in a shallow dish in a warm place and mark its level. Check it over the next few days. Where does the water go? On a cold day, breathe on a cold window and watch.

  5. Tell it back

    Close the book. Your child explains, in their own words, what happens to water when it is heated and when it gets very cold, using the sprites.

  6. Copywork

    Your child copies this from the book, slowly and neatly, minding every capital letter and mark of punctuation:

    "Fine-frost is our family name," it said.

  7. Words to learn

    Learn: evaporation, degree, watersprite, mischievously, swarm, escaped. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.

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