CW Notes

LS-1 (The Selfish Giant)

New Words:
1. delicate: having a soft or fragile beauty.
2. gruff: rough and low pitch voice.
3. wander: walk or move in a leisurely or aimless way.
4. Cloak: a long loose garment.
5. wrapped: cover or enclose in paper or soft material. (in literal sense)
6. rattled: make a rapid succession of short, sharp knocking sounds.
7. twittering: sound of chirping birds
8. farthest: indicates the extent to which one thing is distant from another.
9. bitterly: strong negative emotion such as anger or disappointment:
10. crept: move slowly and carefully in order to avoid being heard or noticed.

Opposites:

1. beautiful X ugly
2. wrap X unwrap
3. selfish X unselfish
4. nowhere X everywhere
5. wicked x righteous

Past Tense:

1. creep – crept
2. break -broke
3. fling – flung
4. understand -understood
5. forget -forgot

I. Read the sentences and answer the questions that follow:

‘Spring has forgotten this garden,’ they cried, ‘so we will live here all the year round.’
1. Who are ‘we’ referred to?
‘We’ refers to the Snow and the Frost.

2. Why does the speaker say that Spring has forgotten the garden?
The speaker says that Spring has forgotten the garden because the trees did not
blossom, there were no birds to sing and no children playing in the garden.

3. What do ‘we’ do to the garden?

The snow covered the garden up the grass with her great white cloak and the Frost
painted all the trees silver. They invited the North Wind to stay with them, who came
wrapped up in furs. He roared all day about the garden and blew the chimney-pots
down. Then, the Hail came on a visit. Everyday for three hours he rattled on the roof of
the castle till he broke most of the slates. He ran round and round the garden as fast as
he could go and his breath was like ice.
 ‘I believe the Spring has come at last,’ said the Giant.

1. How did the Giant know that spring had come?

The Giant knew that spring had come because the Linnet had started singing
outside his window.

2. What did the Giant see?

The Giant saw that the children had crept in through a little hole in the wall and
were sitting on the branches of the trees. In every tree, he could see a child. The
trees were covered with blossoms, the birds were flying about and twittering with
delight and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and were laughing.
3. How did the Giant celebrate the coming of Spring?
The Giant celebrated the arrival of the spring by knocking down the wall and
making his garden the children’s playground forever.

II. Answer the following questions:

1. Why did the children enjoy playing in the garden?

The children enjoyed playing in the garden because it was very beautiful. There
were lovely flowers like stars. There were twelve peach trees that had delicate
blossoms of pink and pearl in the spring-time and bore rich fruit in autumn. There
were birds sitting on the trees and they sang so sweetly that the children stopped
playing to listen to them. They were very happy in the garden.

2. How do we know that the trees were happy to have spring back?
We know that the trees were happy to have spring back again because they were
covered with blossoms and were gently waving their hands above the children’s
heads.

3. Why was it still winter in one corner of the garden?

There was still winter in one corner of the garden because the little boy could not
reach up to the branches of the tree and was wandering around it, crying bitterly.