1. The flag, telling what the flag stands for.

2. A story about the flag. This story may be one you have read in your history or elsewhere, or you may write an original story.

3. An account of the different flags that have been used in this land.

4. Flag customs - when raised, when lowered, when at half mast.

5. The different naval flags and their use.

IV. MEMORIZING A POEM 1

Memorize the poem, The Flag Goes By, by reading it aloud.

Poetry is written to be read aloud.

V. VERBS

In reading the following poem, emphasize the italicized words:

The Brook's Song

I come from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

1 Note to the teacher: See Manual, page 196.

VERBS

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling;

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel

With many a silvery water break
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

257

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

TENNYSON

Read the italicized words with the pronoun

I (meaning the brook) before each.

Here are twenty-five different words that tell what the brook does.

These words are called verbs, another one of the eight classes of words, or Parts of Speech. Words that tell what someone or something does are called verbs.

"Verb" means word. The word in the sentence that tells what is done is called the verb the word because it is the most important word in the sentence.

A verb alone may be a complete sentence. A mother talking to her child may say the noun 66 son, ," but with this word she does not make a sentence, she does not express a thought. She may add a pronoun and an adjective and say, "my little son"- still she does not make a complete sentence. But if she uses only the one verb, "come," she makes a complete sentence, she expresses her thought to the boy. He knows she means, "Son, come to me," or "Son, come with me," and he obeys her.

So if someone says to you "go," "stand," "march," "sit," "run," "jump," "sing," you get the speaker's thought and can obey because you understand the whole thought. Commands are often so given to save time. Usually the word "you" is understood; as, "You go," "You stand."

VI. FINDING VERBS

Make a list of the verbs in the following paragraph :

The wind whistled through the woods. The leaves whispered softly. The birds sang aloud. The little flowers bent their heads. The grass rippled silently. The ferns swayed gently. All listened to the wind's merry tune.

Ask yourself what is told in each sentence, as: What did the wind do?

The word that tells what the wind did is the verb. What did the leaves do?

The word that tells what the leaves did is the verb.

Now give the verb in each sentence and tell why it is a verb, as:

The verb in the first sentence is " whistled,” because it tells what the wind did.

VII.

VARIETY IN THE USE OF VERBS 1

In The Brook's Song the poet used twenty-five different verbs to tell what the brook did. Suppose he had used but a few of the common words that we use most frequently, such as "flow"

1 Note to the teacher: This exercise can be carried out as an interesting game. See Manual, page 197.