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Copywork
About This Passage
Selected because Lobel pairs Frog's cumulative sentence — a small piece of mock-mathematical reasoning — with the closing image of the robins outflown by the kite they had condemned. The first sentence rewards careful copying for its commas and its rising rhythm; each clause repeats the previous list and adds one new element, forming a structure that mirrors the action of building toward success through accumulated failure. The second sentence is the chapter's most quietly devastating: the birds (who can fly) are surpassed by an object (which cannot) lifted by friends who refused to quit. The juxtaposition is the chapter's argument made into image.
"If a running try did not work, and a running and waving try did not work, and a running, waving, and jumping try did not work, I knew that a running, waving, jumping, and shouting try just had to wor...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think the author most wanted the reader to notice or feel. What techniques did the author use?
Discussion Questions
- Lobel structures the chapter around four tries, each one a strict accumulation of the last (running → running and waving → running and waving and jumping → all of those plus shouting). What does this structure ask the reader to expect, and what does it ask the reader to discount? Could the story have made its point with three tries, or with five?
- The robins are technically correct in everything they say. The kite IS not flying when they say it will not fly. It IS hitting the ground when they call it a joke. It IS junk by any reasonable visual evidence after three failures. If the robins are honest observers of present fact, why does Lobel cast them as the chapter's villains? What kind of truth-claim are they failing to make?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A wide grassy open field; in the story, the kind of cleared space where wind moves freely and a kite has room to climb.
Item 2
A hedging adverb meaning "possibly"; Frog uses it to soften each suggestion, refusing to overpromise even as he keeps the trying alive.
Item 3
Adding up over time; Frog's final sentence is cumulative in form because each clause repeats the previous list and adds one element.
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Critical Thinking
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