88. The Seasons, by H. G. Adams, Lowell, Thomas Hood and C. T. Brooks

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:

   Vernal, belonging to spring.

   Courier, a messenger.

   Sear, dry, withered.

   Wane, decrease, decline.

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

2. About the author

   The book's notes say H. G. Adams is an English writer who compiled two volumes of poetical quotations and wrote several volumes of poems; his poem is from the "Story of the Seasons." Thomas Hood was born in 1798, at London. Charles T. Brooks translated "Winter" from the German poet Ludwig Holty. (Lowell's note came with Lesson XLI.)

3. Read it aloud

   Read each poem aloud to your child, then let your child read it. Here are the first lines of each:

   A bursting into greenness;

   Now is the high-tide of the year,

   The autumn is old

   Now no plumed throng

   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.

4. Talk about it

   SayWhat signs of spring does the first poem name?

   SayWhat does "the high-tide of the year" mean?

   SayHow does Hood make autumn seem like an old man?

   SayWhich season's poem do you like best? Why?

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

5. Tell it back

   Your child writes four sentences of their own, one for each season, describing what they notice where they live.

6. Copywork

   Your child chooses one of the four poems and copies it (or one verse of it) from the book, keeping the line breaks.

7. Words to learn

   Learn: petal, vernal, ebbed, courier, lusty, sear, wane. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.