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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the first sentence Colin sees the secret garden. Burnett pours every color — green, gold, purple, white, pink — into one long sentence, as if the garden is rushing at him all at once. Copying it slowly helps a young reader notice how Burnett uses the word 'and' over and over to make the garden feel full and fast and alive.
And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here an...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 20 in your own words. Start with Colin waiting a whole week because of windy weather. Then tell about Mr. Roach coming up to Colin's room and finding the crow and the lamb and Dickon. Then tell about Colin being pushed in his chair down the Long Walk, Mary showing him the key and the ivy and the door, and Dickon pushing the chair inside. Finish with what Colin shouts when he finally looks around.
Discussion Questions
- What in the story shows us that Mr. Roach is surprised when he walks into Colin's room? What does he see there that he did not expect?
- How do you know that Colin and Mary and Dickon wanted to keep the garden a secret? What careful plans did they make so that no one would find out?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Something kept hidden from other people on purpose; the children work hard to keep the garden a secret
Item 2
To speak very softly so only one person can hear; the children begin to whisper when they come near the garden
Item 3
To move something by pressing it with your hands; Dickon gives the wheeled chair one splendid push through the door
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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