Even Small Kids Can Learn Big Words

Natural vocabulary acquisition is one of the wonderful benefits of regularly reading to our children - that is, if we take the time to explain and to demonstrate what a word means!

Little T was just three when she started relishing the word "camouflage." She loves the way it rolls off her tongue, and uses it every chance she gets. One time, she even used it to describe my (newly-done) pink toenails resting on my pink slippers!

So, how did a small child learn to comfortably use such a big word? 

It all started with The Little Rabbit, a book that has lovely photographs of real rabbits instead of the usual picture book illustrations. "Before Five in a Row" suggests that parents talk about how difficult it is to see the wild rabbit in the foliage and to introduce the word camouflage to describe the situation.

I took one step further and made a game out it. Little T and I made some simple blue, green, yellow, and pink origami bunnies and took turns finding ways to camouflage our little pets. I remember playing that game for one whole day, putting the origami bunnies on top of or in front of same-colored objects.

We have since moved on to other books and activities, but somehow, the word camouflage has been ingrained in my daughter's memory and has become part of her daily vocabulary.

Little kids can learn big words, when we read to them regularly, when we patiently answer their questions, and when we take the time to make the words hop out of the pages.


Make magic!

Kerplink! Kerplank! - Onomatopoeia for Preschoolers

“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.”

So how do we kerplink-kerplank or make onomatopoeia a part of our children’s lives?

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!

Kittens for Keeps: Beaches, Kittens and Making Choices

There are only three books that we haven’t yet read on the Before Five in a Row (BFIAR) booklist: My Blue Boat by Chris Demarest, The Quiet Way Home by Bonny Becker, and Jenny’s Surprise Summer by Eugenie. All are out of print and have exorbitant price tags around the web; I’m not going to feel bad about not having those on our bookshelf – or so I tell myself!

When my friend Sanne told me about – and bought for me – Kittens for Keeps, an adaptation of Jenny’s Surprise Summer, I jumped at the chance to cross a book off our list.  

Meg is a little girl who visits her grandmother who lives by the beach. She finds two kittens one day and promptly falls in love with them. With a small house in the city, Meg's parents ask her to choose which of the kittens she will keep and which one will stay with her grandma.

We explored the three themes that are also in the original book – beach, kittens (of course!), making choices – and read a lot of other books to reinforce our experience of each topic.

Beaches

We always play with sand, but we’ve never tried wet sand WITH sea shells. I got the lovely idea from the free introductory issue of Impart Magazine, which is owned by the daughter of Five in a Row creator Jane Lambert.

We were able to make a sand castle - or is it just an upside-down sand bucket? 

and listened to the sounds of the beach from our Kindermusik Out and About CD and this beautiful shell that I borrowed from Sanne.

We also read the following books about the beach:

• The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow – A book that encourages imagination and will transport you to the beach!

• Wonders of Nature – A Little Golden Book celebrating nature

• The Big, Big Sea by Martin Waddell  – A moving book about a girl and her mother who make a memorable visit to the beach one beautiful night. The illustrations are luminous and something that you just have to see for yourself! Here's a peek.

Kittens

Little T and Baby Boy had fun crawling on all fours while making their best cat sounds – meooow. Oh, and Little T also lapped milk from a bowl on the floor. Really cat-ty!

For our read-along about kittens, we read:

• Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag – A Newbery-winner published in 1928 by the author of The ABC Bunny. We had a grand time repeating the extremely catchy phrase, “Cats here, cats there, cats and kittens everywhere. Hundreds of cats,  thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats!”

• Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes – A Caldecott Medal book about a kitten who thinks that the moon is a bowl of milk.

  

Making Choices

The choice that Meg has to make is exactly the one that April in April’s Kittens faces – which kitten should she keep because their home is too small? A Caldecott Honor book and written by Clare Turlay Newberry, April’s Kittens provides a deeper look into the emotions and thinking  process that come with making a decision. It’s the purr-fect book to read with Kittens for Keeps.

Even though Little T makes choices everyday, she was still fascinated to realize that she does!  I pointed out to her the time that her grandparents had asked her to go to their farm with them for the weekend. Though she had really wanted to go with them then, she chose to stay so that she could go to her Kindermusik class and see her friends. Self-awareness is always a good thing, and I am glad to be able to talk about decision-making with her even at an early age.

So, is it worth reading an “adaptation?” My answer is yes, just make sure to beef up with a lot of great go-alongs! 

Make magic!

 

Roll Out The Red Carpet For Father's Day

I love planning learning activities around great books, even out-of-print ones. Relating a story and its elements to what is happening to us and the world around makes it more relevant to our lives. One such book is The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin, which I thought would be perfect for Father’s Day.

Published in 1948 and part of the Before Five in a Row (BFIAR) booklist, The Red Carpet is a rollicking good story with vivid illustrations. It is about a runaway carpet that rolls all over town and stops just in time to make the Duke of Sultana feel welcome when he arrives at the dock. The red carpet and the policemen chasing after it make the unsuspecting Duke beam with importance.

The Red Carpet Treatment 

I planned to roll out a red carpet for my husband for Father’s Day. But the other day, he went to work feeling really sick. I thought it would be a wonderful surprise to welcome him home with a red carpet treatment! It was also a nice tie-in with our discussion about heroes during our recent Philippine Independence Day study. Fathers who work hard deserve to be called heroes, right?

So here’s our red carpet made of eight sheets of crepe paper. What fun we had unrolling our carpet and walking on it!

Heart-Shaped Pretzels

Since the Father’s Day surprise was already unfurled, I decided to pull out all our magic tricks. Little T and I labored in the kitchen the whole afternoon kneading, rolling, and forming heart-shaped pretzels for our hero. We were inspired by the pretzels that fall out of Tony Tortoni’s cart as the red carpet zooms by. The afternoon treat was "good for a first attempt" and that's just fine with me!

Love Signs

As the red carpet rolls and rolls down the street, it passes different buildings and street signs. We talked about the different signs that we see on the road and what they are for and then went on a neighborhood tour for an I-Spy-A-Sign game. Little T then made some signs of her own for her dad, with messages like “I Love You” and “Here” to help her dad find the doorknob… just because.

We got an early start to our Father's Day and I have to think now of other things to do then. But I hope you got some red-carpet ideas for that special day while learning and having fun with your kids!

 Make magic!

I Am An Artist: Finding Art in Nature

I Am An Artist by Pat Lowery Collins is a book about finding art in nature - the lines on a leaf, the color of the sky, the star inside an apple, the roundness of an orange. It is a quiet and powerful book that encourages us to slow down and celebrate nature. It has inspired our family to notice the details wherever we go.

Finding beauty in the world around is a gift of art. Here is Little T's take on being an artist...

I am an artist when I excitedly step on a rainbow on the floor

and see animals in the sky

I am an artist when I make the shade of a tree my own house...

and its leaves my roof

I am an artist when I use coconut shells for bowls and pretend that I'm cooking some food

I am an artist when I see a tree reflected on the water and feel that its branches are waving at me as the wind blows

I am an artist when I gleefully marvel that ducks walk in a line

and that chickens shake their head from side to side when it is raining

I am an artist when I investigate the grains of sand and declare sea water to be too salty for my liking.

I am an artist.


Make magic!

Night Time Play Time

Darkness brings a different sense to fun and learning. It was surreal watching the shadows on the wall when we left just one lamp turned on one night. (I really, really wish I can take better pictures!)

We were reading Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack and were talking about the artist’s use of both detailed and silhouette drawings.

We had such a pleasant time that I was inspired to make a shadow theater box. I took the box of our inflatable pool, cut out a square from the front and back, and covered the front with a sheet of tracing paper for the screen.

We then made some shadow puppets with construction paper and popsicle sticks.

We turned off all the lights except a halogen lamp and looked for the perfect place for our theater (on a lapdesk on top of the bed). Little T learned that it's best to put the light behind the theater. We then made  up silly stories about a dog, a cat, a tree, and a cave. What a great way to make our evenings cozy!

I'm so excited to make more shadow puppets for our night time theater. Some of my ideas are to make some figures to tell the story of Easter, and perhaps make some nursery rhymes show for Baby Boy. 

What else would make a great shadow show?

Make magic!

A Snowy Day in the Sweltering Summer Heat

Manila summer is here, and the heat – ah the heat! – is almost unbearable. The sun blinds my eyes and toasts my skin a darker shade of brown.

Can we just fly into a winter wonderland, catch some snow with our tongues, and glide across a frozen pond in our skate shoes?

We can, and we did, one hot summer day (and night). 

Snowman craft made of cardboard painted white, and pompoms from an
old Christmas Kit. Check out the blue tracks that Peter made.

Escape through imaginative play

My husband and I are big believers of the power of pretend play to help children deepen their knowledge of the world around them and develop their language, problem solving skills, and creativity.

We have always encouraged Little T’s imagination by joining her world of make-believe. We lend our voices to Panda (tiny voice), Bear (growly voice), and various characters to “interact” (“What are you doing, Little T?”) with her as requested. We crawl through tunnels with her. We pretend to be her patients. We take her to the beach in the backyard. We fly on an airplane to visit a country.

And we play in the snow

The Snowy Day by Ezra John Keats from the Before Five in a Row book list is an old favorite. In the story, a boy named Peter explores his neighborhood during a snowfall, makes tracks and snow angels, and slides down a mountain of snow.

In previous readings, we pretended flour 

and sand, on which Little T made tracks like Peter in the book, to be snow.

We like torn tissue paper best, though. We got the idea from Little T’s Kindermusik class (Hello, Weather!) with Teacher Suzette.

We made some paper snowflakes and turned on the A/C.

We put on layers and layers of clothes and skated with our skate shoes.

We made snow balls for a snowball fight

and cleaned the floor as snow angels.

We tasted snow in the daytime... aka Halo-halo, a Filipino dessert with shaved ice

and had some hot chocolate and cheese in the cold, cold night.

Finally, we burrowed deep into our bed covers, and said goodnight.

The Learning Basket

Little T always asks for “winter.” Here are the contents of our Learning Basket when we feel like having some snow in our life.

1. The Snowy Day
2. Snow by Uri Shulevitz - a Caldecott Medal book about snow that a boy and his dog find magical
3. Frog and Toad All Year by Arnold Lobel - a read-aloud classic
4. The Big Snow by Berta Hader - a Caldecott Medal book about woodland animals getting ready for the big snow 
5. The Day Daddy Stayed Home by Ethel and Leonard Kessler - a favorite book that shows a fun, snowy day that a child spends with his father who cannot go to work because of the snow
6. Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London - Froggy wants to play in the snow and puts on his winter clothes

Some Links on the Importance of Pretend Play

How to Encourage Preschool Pretend Play

The Importance of Pretend Play

The Role of Pretend Play in Children's Cognitive Development

Make magic!

Yellow Ball: An Exercise in Perspective

I screamed in surprise when I saw a copy of Yellow Ball while rummaging through a dusty box in my favorite used bookstore. Why wouldn’t I? It was one of four books in Before Five in a Row’s book list that I (or should I say, my kids) did not yet have. Out of print, it is being sold at Amazon for $45 up. And the tag said 49 pesos – just a little over a dollar. I screamed again. (Wouldn’t you have shouted at such a find?)

Yellow Ball is about a beach ball that floats out to sea, tossed by the waves, forgotten, until it finds its way back to a child’s arms along the shore. With just one to two words per page, the story is in the high quality illustration of Caldecott winner Molly Bang.

Perspective

As the ball goes on its adventure, it is seen from several views: below, above, near, far. The images provide a simple, yet powerful way to introduce the concept that things look differently from various sides and angles.

By pointing it out and making children aware of this, we are also working on their problem-solving skills. Sometimes, things, people, and problems, may not be what they seem and need to be examined from another point of view.  

Using a Camera to Practice Perspective

To practice this idea of perspective, I handed Little T our simple digital camera and tasked her to take pictures of her beach ball from different places – far, near, high, low – and asked her how the ball looked like.

Near and big

A bit smaller

Far and small

Can hardly see the ball

Make magic!