Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Dr. Dorian turns an everyday thing into a wonder. A baby spider can spin a perfect web with no lessons from anyone, and the doctor asks if that is a miracle. Copying these sentences gives practice ending one sentence with a period and one with a question mark, and noticing how a careful question can make you stop and wonder at something you usually walk right past.
A young spider knows how to spin a web without any instructions from anybody. Don't you regard that as a miracle?
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell what happens in this chapter in order. When you reach the part where Mrs. Arable talks with Dr. Dorian, slow down and tell what the doctor says that helps her feel better.
Discussion Questions
- Fern's mother thinks Fern is too much alone in the barn, but Fern says the barn is a sociable place and not lonely at all. Why does the same barn feel lonely to her mother but friendly to Fern? Use Fern's own words about her best friends in the barn cellar to explain how you know.
- Dr. Dorian says a spider's web is a miracle because nobody teaches a young spider how to spin. Why does the doctor call an ordinary web a miracle? Use the doctor's words about who taught the spider to explain what you think.
+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary
Item 1
To make up something that is not real; what Fern's mother says she must not do.
Item 2
A wonderful thing that is very hard to explain.
Item 3
A helpful idea about what someone should do.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 4 more questions in the complete study guide
Get the complete study guide — free
Sign up and get your first book with every chapter included. Copywork, discussion questions, vocabulary, and critical thinking.
Sign up free