Parts of a word

Here's another word game you can play, similar to What shall we name? that I wrote about yesterday. Start easy, then build up from there.

Come up with a common word part or word root, like -berry. Then, ask your child to help you come up with all the words you can think of that include that part:

• strawberry
• blueberry
• gooseberry
• raspberry
  

Don't worry if your kid starts making up words too (pickleberry, horseberry, schmoopberry), that's part of the fun of it (as long as it's not all made up). You can laugh, and call them silly if you like. As long as they're having fun with words, the game is a success.

This morning, the Painter (3;11) said: look at my eye. It's red. So, I picked up on his comment.

Me: Do you know what a red-eye is?
Painter: no.
Me: It's a flight that you take late at night. And do you know what a private eye is?
Painter: no.
Me: It's an investigator. Someone you hire to find out things for you. And a bull's-eye?
Painter: What?
Me: It's a target. Something you try to hit.

You can also vary it in many ways. Rather than a root word like berry or eye, come up with all the words that start with "s":

• silly
• soapy
• Simon
• stop
  

or that express the past:

• talked
• spoke
• went
• passed

This is a great opportunity for a teaching moment. You can explain what the past is, and that talked and spoke are synonyms. You can demonstrate irregular verbs went not goed... isn't that funny, we don't say goed, we say went.

You can trade off naming a word, then you or your child has to come up with synonyms or antonyms. Or you can list off verb pairs (present/past):

• go/went
• stop/stopped
• shop/shopped
• drive/drove

There's no end to what you can come up with together.

What shall we name tonight?

Each night, after reading books and singing songs, we snuggle up, with the lights out, and name things. But you can do this at any time of day. The point of this exercise is simply to have fun with categories. #1 (The Painter) took to this ritual from the start, when he was about two.

What do we name? Children love to name things they're familiar with. Sometimes this gets obsessive. The Painter went through a phase of naming colors. Sometimes I'd choose the category to name, sometimes he would. But for months, it seemed, he would ask to name things like balls, or balloons, or fans, then say red fans, blue fans, green fans or pink balls, silver balls... and so it went.

But you can name just about anything: round things, things that are red, rooms in the house, words that start with "m", things we can eat, friends' names... Tonight we named parts of a tree. It's always fun when you can slip in some unfamiliar things along with the familiar, a teaching moment. Tonight it went like this:

Painter: a tree stump
Me: Yeah, and the trunk of a tree
Painter: and leaves
Me: uh huh... and the branches... what's on the outside of a tree? The brown part...
Painter: yeah...
Me: It's called the bark... and the white part inside is called the pith.
Painter: and the seed pods...
Me: That's right, or the fruit. Seed pods are when there isn't any fruit... and the seeds inside... and the crown... that's the top of the tree... and the roots, they go in the ground, and draw the moisture and the nutrients for the tree.
Painter: ... I think I'm all tree-parted out.
Me: Me too.

Laurie Berkner Band

Here's a recommendation. Check out my new link to the Laurie Berkner Band's website. We found their CD "Buzz, Buzz!" at the library about a month ago. #1 wouldn't let us return it, so we had to buy a copy. The music is fun and intelligent. It's great for kids. Listening to anything endlessly will drive anyone (over the age of 6) nuts, but unlike most kid's music albums I've listened to, this one's really a treat. Of course, there are some things that could have been done better (I think "I called you on the telephone" could have benefitted from a few more rehearsals for instance), but overall I give this a high recommendation.