little marks that are placed at the ends of sentences. Besides, you will need to know the spelling of words.

3. Compare what you have written with what is on the board. Look for three things:

(1) Capital letters

(2) The mark at the end of each sentence

(3) The spelling of words

Did you have everything right? If not, correct the mistakes you made.

6. Correct Usage—Saw

Some pupils use the word seen when they should use saw. Mistakes of this kind spoil stories, just as a song is spoiled when some one sings wrong notes. Let us begin to get rid of these unpleasant mistakes by learning how to use the word saw correctly.[19]

Oral Exercise. The word saw is used correctly in the three sentences that follow. Read these sentences aloud several times.

1. Tom said he saw an owl in his dream.

2. I saw a pretty dollhouse in my dream last night.

3. I dreamed that I saw a beautiful yellow bird sitting on a fruit tree and singing.

Game. Let all the pupils, except one, play that they have fallen asleep. When they have closed their eyes and rested their heads on their folded arms, the one pupil who plays that she is Queen Mab tiptoes up and down between the rows of seats. With a fairy wand she makes a circle round several heads. Then the fairy disappears, the class wakes up, and each pupil who has had a dream tells his classmates the most interesting one thing that he saw in it. Thus, one pupil might say:

I saw an elf. He was sitting in front of the door of his tree-house. He was making a toy for a little boy.

Another pupil might say:

I saw a dwarf. He was riding over the fruit-tree tops. He was on the back of a beautiful eagle.

Another might say:

I saw an owl. It had big, round, shiny eyes. It looked at me, but I was not afraid.

Still another might say:

I saw a fine white horse. It had a golden harness. A brave soldier sat on its back.

Each pupil begins with the words I saw and tries to say something that is very different from what his classmates say they dreamed, and much more wonderful.[20]

7. Study of a Fable

Oral Exercise. Did you ever read the story or fable of the ants and the grasshoppers? Read it carefully as it is told on this and the next pages. See whether you can tell your classmates the lesson that it teaches.