Play with your words!

I love words – the polysyllabic ones and the monosyllabic ones, the ones that rhyme with each other, and the ones that don’t. I love the ones that have several different meanings but only one spelling, and the ones that sound the same, but mean different things and have different spellings.

I love that a bunch of different words mean the same thing and yet are all slightly different at the same time. Think of all the words for that wet stuff that falls from the sky so regularly around here: rain, precipitation, drizzle, mist, showers, sleet, sprinkle, torrent, cloudburst, deluge.

I love that our language gives us so many ways to communicate our thoughts, dreams, ideas and heart’s desires.

So I was really excited when I sat down to plan my lessons and discovered that it was time to do “There’s a Little Wheel Turning in My Heart” or (in my own words) “There’s an itty bitty teeny weenie circumvolution oscillating in my cardiac organ”.  I love this song because it gives children a chance to play with words.

Did you know that a four year old knows approximately 10,000 words?  A toddler is in the business of accumulating all those words.  They learn one word per hour they are awake.

In order for them to know what to do with all those words they need to hear them work – in books and in conversation, in songs and prayers, rhymes, chants and poems – and they need to practice with them in all the same ways.   “There’s a Diminutive Castor Rotating in my Ticker” encourages playing with the building blocks of language. Nouns and verbs.

First, sing the song a couple of times as written using the original words. But, the real learning in this song occurs in what you do with it.

Next, ask your child what’s in their heart. This is not a rational question, of course, but children are not rational people so it works.  You can also ask what they love, or what their favorite things or people are.  (Be sure you have the video camera ready- they may just say “grandma”)

Then, ask what the item or person is doing. Again, it does not have to be rational.  Grandma could very well be skipping rope in your child’s wacky little heart.  Now you sing the song with their words-

Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart, in my heart
Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart!
In my heart, in my heart,
Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart!

There are other variations for types of words, of course.  A little girl in one of my classes today wanted finger nail polish in her heart. So rather than asking what it was doing in there- (we all know it was sparkling) we asked where it was.  It was on her toes. Naturally.  So now the song goes like this-

There is polish on my toes in my heart in my heart
There is polish on my toes in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart!
There is polish on my toes in my heart!

With an older child you can add some adjectives-

A blue car is racing in my heart, or
A big shark is flying in my heart

Remember, it doesn’t have to make sense; a child’s sense of humor is very primitive, and the incongruous is totally hysterical to them. Flying sharks are the stuff of laugh attacks that last for hours.

I play this game with all my students from Our Time through Young Child and beyond, so get the whole family involved.  And the car is a great place to play this one…

-posted by Miss Allison, who tells you to go for it. Play with your words.