70. Talking over Vacation Plans
Soon the school term will come to an end. Then the long summer vacation will begin. What good times you will have! Perhaps your parents have already made plans for you. Perhaps they have planned a trip away. Or it may be that they will send you to the summer school. Or, like most pupils, perhaps you will spend the summer at home. You will play outdoors with boys and girls who live near you.
Oral Exercise. Tell your classmates what you think you will be doing during the coming summer vacation. Perhaps the following questions will help you:
1. What games do you think you will play during the summer?
2. Shall you go to any city parks? What can you see and do there?
3. Shall you go swimming or boating? Shall you go on a picnic to a pleasant place?
4. Shall you go to the public library?
5. Shall you take a trip away from home?
Earlier in this book you read about fairies. You know what wonderful things they can do. They can make wishes come true. If a fairy came to your schoolroom and spoke to you and your classmates, you might be very much surprised. But you would be still more surprised if the fairy stood before the class, perhaps on the top of the teacher's desk where all could see, and made this little speech in a tiny but musical voice:
Boys and girls, I have been very glad all the year to see you having such good times together in this room. I think that young folks who enjoy school as much as you do should have a very pleasant vacation too.
As you see, I have brought my magic wand with me. Watch me as I wave it in the air. Yes, I am waving it more than once. I want to make a ring in the air for every boy and girl in the class. There, I have done it. Now each of you may have a wish, just as Peter was given a wish by the strange little old man. Each of you may wish a summer vacation exactly as he would like it best. All these wishes will come true.
Some of you boys will probably wish for a trip to the moon in a magic airplane. The trip is yours the moment you speak your wish. Some of you girls will probably wish to spend the two summer months in fairyland. Your wish, too, will come true.
Now I must say good-bye. Before I leave I shall make one more circle in the air with my wand. For whom is this? It is for the teacher. When the wishing begins, the teacher must have a wish, too.
When the fairy left the room, the planning and wishing would begin. Each pupil would probably have a wish very different from that of his classmates. Some of the plans and wishes would be very interesting. It would be fun to hear them all.
Oral Exercise. Tell your classmates how you would like to spend the long summer vacation if you could spend it any way you wished.[83]