The Mother Tongue, Book I: Lessons in Speaking, Reading and Writing English · Secs. 359–361 · Part 2: Part Second

103. Interjections

Goal: Your child finds interjections, says what feeling each shows, and punctuates them with the exclamation point.

⏱ About 25 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗ 🖨 Copywork sheet

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • Paper and pencil (a notebook kept just for this book works well)

What's in the book

Section 359 explains interjections, words "thrown into" a sentence to express sudden feeling, with ten examples. Section 360 gives ten more to find and name the feeling. Section 361 asks the child to copy them and be ready to write them from dictation, remembering capital O.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Read the examples (Section 359)

    Read the ten examples aloud with lots of feeling.

    "It snows!" cried the schoolboy. "Hurrah!"

    Your child names each interjection.

  2. What feeling? (Section 360)

    Read the next ten. For each interjection, your child says the feeling: joy, sorrow, surprise, impatience, calling to someone.

  3. Act them out

    Take turns saying an interjection (Hurrah! Alas! Pshaw! Hush!) in a voice that shows its feeling. The other guesses the feeling.

  4. Copy (Section 361)

    Your child copies five of the sentences in Section 360, with every exclamation point and capital O.

  5. Dictation

    Read three of them aloud; your child writes them from dictation, then checks against the book.

  6. Check it gently

    Your child fixes their own slips. Look especially at capital O, which the book says is always a capital.

  7. What a good result looks like

    Example (written for this guide, not from the book):

    Hurrah! we won the race.

    Oh! I forgot my lunch.

    Hush! the baby is sleeping.

Answers to the book's problems

Section 359: 1. Hark (twice). 2. Hush. 3. Hurrah. 4. Alas (twice). 5. lo. 6. Halloo, whoop, halloo. 7. lo. 8. Bah. 9. Caw, caw. 10. Ho, ho. Section 360, with possible feelings: 1. Hurrah (joy). 2. O (calling to the bee, delight). 3. Hurrah (joy). 4. Ho there, ahoy (calling, hailing a ship). 5. Alas (sorrow). 6. O (joy). 7. O (calling, wonder). 8. O (fear, urgency). 9. Pshaw (impatience, annoyance). 10. Ah (sorrow or doubt).

Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.

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