Teachers' Leaflet. 473 



watch them mature. To a child properly taught the dying blossom should 

 mean the growing and perfecting of the seed ; and they should not feel 

 sorrow at the fading of the flower, but joy in its fruition. In connection 

 with the seeds of the sunflower the gold-finches should be studied, as 

 they visit the sunflowers in flocks. Also the fact should be brought out 

 that sunflower seed is good chicken food, and the people in Russia some- 

 times grind it for bread. 



LESSON XL. 



Purpose. — To teach that each flower family has its own way of 

 planting its seeds. 



After the pupils observe that the seeds of the golden-rod, aster and 

 thistle develop fuzzy balloons which the wind carries and plants in differ- 

 ent places, let them observe that the burdock-bur is a box full of seeds 

 with hooks all around it to catch on to any passing" creature and thus be 

 carried away. The sunflower shakes out its seeds and trusts to the birds 

 to carry a few of them away for planting, while the daisy sifts its seeds 

 with the aid of the wind, and often scatters them in the grass or clover 

 seed, which the farmer sows the next year. 



References. — The Burdock, Nature-Study and the Child, p. 389. 

 " Plants and Their Children," p. 52. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 LESSON XLL 



STUDY OF LEAVES IN PRIMARY GRADES. 



Purpose. — (a) To teach the child some of the ways in which leaves 

 are related to the remainder of the plant, (b) To draw out the fact that 

 there is a great difference or variation in leaves, and thereby to lead on 

 later to the fact of variation in general, (c) To interest the pupil in 

 form and color. 



Preliminary Work. — During the autumn in the eastern United States, the 

 attention of the children should he attracted to the leaves by their gorgeous colors. 

 It is well to use this interest to cultivate their knowledge of leaf form and of 

 trees, hut this teaching of the tree species to the child should be done incidentally 

 and guardedly. If the teacher invariably says, " this is a hickory leaf or this is 

 a white oak leaf," the pupils will soon follow her example, quite unconscious of 

 the fact that they are learning the leaves by name. After they have become thor- 

 oughly interested in leaves, as they will if they make collections for pressing and ' 

 for ornamenting the schoolroom, they should somehow be taught through their 

 own observations, the fact that leaves are a necessity to the life of trees and of 

 plants. 



