Home Geography for Primary Grades Part 2

Comes the north wind, snowflakes bringing: Robes the fields in purest white, Paints grand houses, trees, and mountains On our window-panes at night.

Hills and vales the east wind visits, Brings them chilly, driving rain; Shivering cattle homeward hurry, Onward through the darkening lane.

Heat the south wind kindly gives us; Reddens apples, gilds the pear, Gives the grape a richer purple, Scatters plenty everywhere.

Flowers sweet the west wind offers, Peeping forth from vines and trees; Brings the b.u.t.terflies so brilliant, And the busy, humming bees.

Each wind brings his own best treasure To our land from year to year; Blessings many without measure E'er attend the winds' career.

Lillian c.o.x.

"Whichever way the wind doth blow.

Some heart is glad to have it so; And blow it east or blow it west, The wind that blows, that wind is best."

_Write_ all that you can tell about the wind.

What was the direction of the wind during the last snow-storm? Why is the north wind cold? Why is the south wind warm?

LESSON VII.

HOW TO TELL DISTANCE.

To tell where a place is, we must know its direction. But this is not all; we must also know how far it is from us; that is; its _distance_.

To find this out we measure.

You have often heard of an _inch_, a _foot_, and a _yard_. This line is one inch long -------- . Your ruler is twelve inches long, that is a foot. Three lengths of your ruler make a yard. A yard stick is three feet long.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEASURING SHORT DISTANCES.]

With these measures you can tell how long your slate or your desk is, or how long and wide the schoolroom is.

The inch, foot, and yard are used for measuring short distances. But when we wish to tell the distance between objects far apart, we use another measure called a _mile_. A mile is much longer than a yard.

Think of some object that is a mile from our schoolhouse. How long would it take you to walk that distance?

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEASURING LONG DISTANCES.]

ORAL EXERCISES.

How many inches long is your slate? How long is your desk? How many feet long is your room? How wide is it? What is the distance around the room?

How many feet wide is each window? Each door? How many yards wide is the nearest street or road?

About what is the height of the schoolroom? Of the schoolhouse? Of the tallest tree near by? Of the nearest church spire?

About how long is the longest street in the town where you live? Do you know how many blocks or squares make a mile? Name the nearest river or creek. Give its direction from the school. In what direction does the water run? Give the direction and distance of the nearest church. What must you know to go to any place?

NOTE.--Have pupils estimate distances by the eye, then verify by actual measurement. Continue the exercises until the work becomes quite accurate. Correct ideas of distance are necessary in order to understand how large the world is, and how far apart places are on its surface.

LESSON VIII.

PICTURES AND PLANS.

You all know what a picture is. But do you know what a plan is?

A little boy wanted to show his cousin, who lived some miles away; the shape and size of his house, and how the rooms were arranged. How could he do this?

On a large sheet of white paper, he placed lines of blocks in the form of his house. Then, with a lead pencil, he drew a line on the paper along the sides of the blocks. He next took up the blocks, and there, on the paper, was a plan of his house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE PICTURE SHOWS THE OBJECTS."]

Here is a picture of a schoolroom. We see desks, the teacher's table, a chair, a clock, globe, and two maps, in the picture. The picture shows these objects as they would appear if we stood at the door behind the teacher's table and looked in.

This is a plan of the schoolroom, a picture of which is shown above.

You see, the plan and picture are quite different.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE PLAN SHOWS WHERE THE OBJECTS ARE."]

The picture shows the objects as we see them before us. The plan shows where the objects are, and their direction from one another.

Now let us see if we can make a plan of the same schoolroom on the blackboard.

The first thing is to measure the sides of the room. We will suppose the two long sides are each forty feet long, and the two short sides each thirty feet long. Now we will draw four straight lines on the board for the four sides. Of course, the lines must be much shorter than the sides themselves, else our plan will be too large.

Make one inch in the plan stand for one foot in the room. So the lines for the long sides will each be forty inches long, and the lines for the short sides thirty inches long.

The next thing is to make s.p.a.ces in the sides for the door and the windows, and oblongs for the desks. But we must remember that an inch in our plan stands for a foot in the object itself, and therefore we must allow as many inches for the width of doors and windows, and for the length and width of the desks, as there are feet in the objects themselves. Thus, if the door is three feet wide, we must make it three inches wide in our plan.

And lastly, we will draw a circle for the globe, and an oblong and square for the teacher's table and chair, that shall show just where and just how long these objects are.

We have now a _plan_ of the schoolroom. Let us put N. to show the north side of the room, S. to show the south side, E. to show the east side, and W. to show the west side. We can now tell the direction of one thing from another in our plan.

LESSON IX.

WRITTEN EXERCISE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PICTURE OF SCHOOL GROUNDS.]