When my oldest was five I used our refrigerator magnets to showcase a Word of the Week. With the definition nearby on an index card the idea was to reward her for correctly using the word in a sentence. Provoke, jovial, morose, taciturn, agitate, we focused on adjectives expressing emotion or nouns and verbs that had easy synonyms that she already knew and I gave out M&Ms for correct usage.Successful? You be the judge. When Grace came home from school and I asked how her day was she replied, "Not good Mommy. I am morose."
Surprised and trying not to laugh I asked, "Why?"
"Because Hayden provoked me again."
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Technorati tags: WFMW, vocabulary, children, motherhood
31 comments:
Awesome. I love this. I will have to remember it for when my son gets older!
signed,
a fellow former English major
what a cool idea, my husband and I use the letters to write sexy silly notes to each other , cause our daughter at 18 months can't read =) but when she can, i am going to steal your idea fun fun fun!
Awesome, awesome idea!!
My father was an editor at a large daily and I grew up with an excellent vocabulary.
Of course, my 6th grade teacher also accused me of Palagerism because, "It is impossible to believe that a 6th grader would ever use the word 'Juxtaposition'."
Sigh.
Genius, it's another idea for my book for when Erin is older...I'm assuming 9 months is too young to start? :)
Love that idea!
I am stealing it when the time comes.
And here I thought those letters were just for putting in their mouths and getting lost under things.
My English teacher in high school used to give us 200 new vocab words every couple of weeks. Which is why to this day, I still use the word "harangue" in everyday speech.
Oooh, I dig this idea too!
I'm going to do it. Great fun.
wow, that is awesome.
how come my children put the refrigerator magnets down the vent?
my neighbor is a newspaper editor and the first thing I noticed when I met her was her vocabulary.
What a great idea!
How funny. I'd say it worked for your family! I always wondered what to do with those letters once the kids were older. Good idea.
That's so funny, and yet so wonderfully educational! I'm totally gonna steal that idea.
I love that! We're going to have
to use that for our homeschool!
Thanks for sharing!
Tracy
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing it.
Very nice. Give kids big words, help them get beat up in high school for knowing big words.
That's what happened to me anyway. ;)
Steve~
Fantastic. Brilliant. Love it.
First, that is so cute! Second, what a great idea.
"Not good, mommy. I am morose."
I totally want to adopt her. Seriously. Any kid that uses the word morose is so my friend.
Aw, too cute. No one could feel morose reading that entry; ok, so I used the word - now where's my cookie?
Great idea! I am a fan of magnetic poetry kits, and I like this too. Dontcha just bet your kids' teachers are amazed at their vocabulary.
Wow, that's actually very cool. :) Her vocabulary is bigger than mine already. That would be one way for me to learn too... M&M's are the best.
Great idea! Now to find a whole alphabet worth of those magnets..... I know they are around here somewhere, I keep stepping one them.
Sounds like it's working! LOL! We have fridge magnets but it basically used for Baby Bug's teething toys (don't worry, they're huge! The magnets, not her teeth).
I love this!!! It's a great way to get those words into their vocabulary and make them stick! Brilliant! Simply brilliant!
I'll have to try that out. Clever. Beats plain old boring flash cards and mommy's accident four letter word slips.
That is a prefectly cromulent idea to embiggens your children's lives.
That's a fantastic idea. I'm the same way -- I find it impossible not to laugh when Little-E uses a word that's totally out of character for her two-year-old vocab.
Awesome!
Great idea, particularly for a girl who loves to kick butts in Scrabble. I can add some new words up my sleve too. Wonderful idea!
what a fabulous idea.
Good Lordy Almighty, you gots yourself lot 'o comments on this one!
(ok, sorry, it's 12:30 am...)
Love the tip! I'm actually going to do this one. Great idea!!!!
(I really like your blog! I'm going to be back lots more.)
This is great! I can't wait to start doing this with my daughter (when the time comes). Thanks for the wonderful tip! I love this!
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