I don't want to snuggle with daddy

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.

The shell game

You know the shell game? Usually it's done with three half coconut husks, and a ball or puck, hidden beneath one of them. In New York City (at least years ago) the hucksters plying three-card monty were ubiquitous. This was a variation, using three slightly bent playing cards, face down. In each case, the goal is to find the object (the ball, puck, or red ace), while the other party shuffles and reshuffles them.

With my boys, I play a slight variation. We take a small ball or other object. I place it between my cupped palms, shaking back and forth. Then I separate my hands, and hide the object in one of them. They have to guess which hand has the object. For the older boy, he can point to the hand, or say "left" or "right". For the toddler, I just open which ever hand he touches first (though he often grabs both at the same time), revealing either an empty hand, or the object.

You can vary this of course, using plastic bowls or storage containers. Start with just two choices however, to keep it simple, and get your children accustomed to the idea of finding a hidden object. After a while, you can add a third or even more. You can take two checker pieces, one red, one black, and hide them both. This is a bit simpler, but similar to Playing with Contrasts. Mix it up. Have fun. Your kids will love the game.

Seek in the dark

Here's a variation to Impoverished Senses. #2 and I were getting ready for bed in our accustomed way, in the dark, with the door closed. I took an empty Nesquick can, cardboard with a metal bottom. It makes a nice percussive sound, when tapped with the fingers or fingernails. I explained to #2 (14 months at this point) that I was going to go somewhere, and he had to follow the noise, and find me. I moved to one part of the room, and tapped on the can bottom: thump-duduh-dump ... thump-duduh-dump. He came and plopped on my lap, a bit cautiously. I snuggled for a moment, then moved to another part of the room, repeating the game. And again. By about the fifth time he was sated. He lay down next to me on the floor, butt in the air, and went to sleep. I lifted him into his crib, gave a peck, then left.

Taste Test

Here's a wonderful little game you can play with your children. It works well for any child of an age to eat solid foods. Go to your spice cabinet and gather up a bunch of different spices. Name the spice, then poor a little bit out on to a plate, or into your hand. Have them taste each spice in order, repeating the name again as they taste it. Keep water handy if you let them taste anything spicy. If you have them dip a wet finger into the spices (a handy way to get a little bit to their mouths) just make sure they don't rub their eyes.

Vary the exercise on different occasions. Instead of spices, use different kinds of melons, or fruits, or vegetables. One they're familiar with the game, try making it more and more subtle. Use five kinds of apples, or oranges, or peppers, or beans.

As a bonus, you'll be exposing your toddlers to a variety of different foods before they've developed strong preferences, or getting your preschoolers to eat more fruits and vegetables, if they often resist. Maybe they'll even decide they like pears, or mangoes.

You can discuss and describe the different textures and colors of the spices, or fruits, or vegetables. You can talk about the different shapes, and different kinds of skins, or how the plant grows. You can collect the seeds, and see how different they look. Plant them as another special project. You can draw pictures with your children of the different foods, or write out the names in letters.

Playing with food. Now isn't that something every kid likes?

Replacement/displacement

Last night, in the van, #1 came up with his own variation of the alphabet song. He sang through it all, but replaced the beginning of every letter with "j": jay, jee, jee, jee, jee, jef, jee, jach, juy, ..... It got me thinking. How creative.

It's similar to the old play song Mary, Mary, bo-bary, fee fih fo fary, Mary.... There's also the "BINGO"-type play songs. B-I-N-G-O... [clap]-I-N-G-O ... [clap]-[clap]-N-G-O.

Each of these enhances memory, and helps exercise their ability to keep several things in mind at once. I thought about how this can be applied to other domains as well.

The boys have a small rug in their room, with a map of the U.S. I picked it up, and turned it around. There are many subtle ways to challenge your child's acuity in noticing change. Rearrange one room in the house, or put a familiar object in a different place. See if your child notices. Talk about it with them, even if they're not yet talking.

This will only work if the child has well-established expectations about the object. So use things that they are quite familiar with, or which have always been in the same place. Don't overuse the technique, or they'll just suspect the whole world turned upside down.

In music, there is a whole practice (especially in the Baroque era) of manipulating melodies by reversing them or inverting them (intervals that went up, now go down). This can be done with rhythms (dum-dum-duh-duh-dum becomes dum-duh-duh-dum-dum).


You can make up your own variations with replacement (changing the first or the last sound or word or note, or putting a different object in a familiar place) displacement (rearranging a room, or transposing a melody, or moving a bookshelf from the corner to the middle of a wall), inversion (count backwards, or walk backwards, instead of forwards), reversion (well, you get the point).