Notes of Lessons: Grammar, Class II

Notes of Lessons: Grammar, Class II

[We have thought that it might be of use to our readers (in their own families) to publish from month to month during the current year, Notes of Lessons prepared by students of the House of Education for the pupils of the Practising School. We should like to say, however, that such a Lesson is never given as a tour de force, but is always an illustration or an expansion of some part of the children’s regular studies (in the Parents’ Review School), some passage in one or other of their school books.—Ed.]

Subject: Grammar • Group: English • Class II • Time: 20 minutes

By H. M. A. Bell
The Parents’ Review, 1904, pp. 228-229

Objects

I. To increase the children’s power of reasoning and attention.

II. To increase their knowledge of English Grammar.

III. To introduce a new part of speech—preposition.

Lesson

Step I.—Draw from the children the names of the two kinds of verbs and the difference between them, by putting up sentences on the board. Thus in the sentence “Father slept,” “slept” is intransitive, therefore he could not “slept” anything, as “slept” cannot have an object.

Step II.—Put on the board the sentence “Mary went,” and ask the children to try and make it more complete by adding an object. “Mary went school” would not be sense, but “Mary went to school” would be. Ask for other phrases saying where Mary went, as: for a walk, in the town, with mother, on her bicycle, by train, etc.

Step III.—Tell the children that these little words on, in, by, for, with, etc., belong to a class of little words which are very much used with intransitive verbs, and though they have not much meaning when used alone, yet in a sentence they cannot stand without an object. You cannot say “Mary went in,” without saying what she went in.

Step IV.—Introduce the word “preposition” giving its derivation. Because these little words always take objects after them and because their place is before the object, they are called prepositions, “pre” being the Latin word for “before,” and “position” another word for “place.”

Step V.—Write on the board the definition:—“A preposition always has an object after it.”

Step VI.—Let the children work through the following exercises:—

(1.) Put three objects after each of the following prepositions:—in, on, over, by, with and from.

(2.) Put three prepositions and their objects after the following:—Mary plays, Mother sits, John runs.

(3.) Supply three prepositions in each of the following sentences:—The book is _____ the table. The chair is _____ the door. I stood _____ the window.

(4.) Supply three subjects and verbs to each of the following prepositions and objects:— _____ _____ in the garden, _____ _____ on the floor, _____ _____ by the fire.

(5.) Make three sentences about each of the following, each sentence to contain an intransitive verb, preposition and object:—The white pony, my little brother, that pretty flower.