Guess what I have.
It is a flower.
It is white.
It has a yellow centre.
(The children answer—a daisy.) Or—
Guess what I have.
It is a leaf.
It is yellow.
It is long.
It is narrow.
(The children answer—the willow.)
After the pupils have made a careful study of a few birds or flowers, the reading lesson describes one of these, and the pupils are expected to name it from the description. If a child gives the wrong name, one of those who know better points out the line or lines barring out this object, and reads to the one making the mistake as proof of his error.
I live in the woods.
I am not a bird.
I am not a flower.
I am not a tree.
I run up trees.
I eat nuts.
I have a bushy tail.
What is my name? (Squirrel.)
I am a little bird.
My back is brown.
My breast is white.
My bill is curved.
I go up a tree trunk.
I fly to another tree.
I like insects.
What is my name? (The brown creeper.)
This is a big bird.
It is blue.
It has black bands on its tail and wings.
It has a crest.
Its bill is black.
It scolds.
What is its name? (The blue jay.)
The children sometimes play a game like the following: All but one personify red-headed woodpeckers. The one questions from the board. If a red-headed woodpecker fails to answer the question put to him, he takes the place of the interlocutor. It is an honor to be able to answer all the questions put:—
What color is your head?
What color is your throat?
What color is your breast?
What colors on your wings?
What color is your bill?
What do you do?
Where do you make your nest?
To a set of questions like the following, the children give the answers, after reading the questions silently:—
What bird did you first see this spring?
What have you seen a robin do?
What flower did you see first?
What yellow flowers have you seen this spring?
What white flowers?
What blue flowers?
What bird builds a nest in a tree trunk?
What bird builds a nest on the ground?