“Blueberries for Sal” by Robert McCloskey was one of the
first books that we read when we started following Before Five in a Row two
years ago. It is about Sal, a little girl who goes blueberry-picking with her
mother. As her mother picks the succulent fruit to be canned, Sal munches her
way through the bushes. On the other side of the hill, a baby bear is also
eating blueberries with its mother to prepare for winter. Confusion between the
two pairs ensues, but the two babies soon find their way back to their own
mothers.
With this charming premise, we learned about bears, talked
about staying with Mama or Papa at all times when out and about, and most
importantly, we learned how to kerplink-kerplank,
to listen to sounds that words make.
Onomatopoeia
Kerplink-kerplank
is the sound that Sal’s blueberries make when she drops each one in her tin
pail. It is what made the book really memorable for Little T, and recently for
Little Sir (formerly known as Baby Boy) too. We drop some beads, coins, shells
into our little pails and go kerplink-kerplank.
From the Five in a Row lessons for The Glorious Flight and
Down, Down The Mountain, we learned that a word that sounds like what is being
described is called onomatopoeia. Think swoosh,
chirp-chirp, knock-knock, splash, baa-baa, squeak, tick-tock, creak!
If I remember right, I learned about onomatopoeia and other
literary devices in fourth grade. But preschoolers enjoy it more and can definitely
be taught about it! Children are naturally drawn to onomatopoeic words as these
are musical, descriptive, and recognizable in their daily life.
Exposing children to and making them
aware of onomatopoeia help in vocal or language development, improve listening
skills, and boost imagination. It makes reading fun, exciting, and “happening.”
Read onomatopoeia books
Children enjoy hearing stories that have a lot of sounds,
that’s why Dr. Seuss books are such big hits. With "Mr. Brown Can Moo", you can moo, bzzz,
bam bam bam. In The Little Golden
Book "I Can Fly," you can pop, pop, pop like
a rabbit and crunch crunch crunch as
you eat your lunch.
Our other favorites are Jonathan London’s Froggy books, in
which Froggy goes flop, flop, flop as
he walks, and bumps his head with a, well, bump!
Demonstrate
Children will immediately recognize onomatopoeia once you
point it out to them. It’s even better when you demonstrate it, such as when
you actually knock while saying knock-knock,
or you bounce as you say bump! Reading , saying, and
doing, engage more than one of your child’s senses, making it more memorable
for him.
Make up your own sounds
Let the fun begin! Look around you and choose an object for
which you will make a sound. A fan can whiiir
whiiir whiiir, the faucet can drip
drip drip, and the light switch
can click! This exercise will make
your child more mindful of the sounds around him, and will fire up his
imagination.
It’s never too early to teach your preschooler how to kerplink-kerplank. Using onomatopoeia
in their writing, which is the objective of teaching it in the grades level,
will be for the future. But for now, listening and imitating are the key to a
fun and engaging reading time!
Make magic!
3 comments:
we have that same plastic pail, and we also used this when we rowed the book several months ago! :)
Thanks Sanne!
love this post! :)
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