Elementary Kid Activity: Weeks Nine and Ten

This is it!!

Last week, baby C.J. was in the hospital. It was a trying week, and blogging was no where near the top of any to-do list. She is much better now, and our follow-up appointment is in a few days. We hope that is it.

I didn't get to do much of a "word of the day" with the kids. We started talking about nouns a bit, so I will show you what we are doing this week in addition to what we did a bit of last week.

Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea

Verb: an action word

Last week the kids and I talked about nouns, and pointed them out when we saw them. Examples included themselves, floor, ceiling, television, pictures, dolls, toys, puzzles, windows, etc. Every noun was very concrete, something they could see or touch.

I wanted to introduce them to abstract nouns (mostly ideas or concepts) without making it too technical for them yet. When we read the story Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, I did. The conversation was basically:

Me: Love. Hmmm, do you think love is a noun?

Kids: No, yes, no, we can't touch love.

Me: Right, but is "love" a thing? an idea?

Za: No!

Ty: Yes!

Me: Why?

Ty: It is a thing!

Za never understood it, I don't think - she said she did, but I don't know. I do think Ty understood. I was ok with this though, because I wanted to start the conversation about grammar early in my children's lives. We are at least talking about it.

This week we are working with verbs - action, not linking.

The work eventually turned into rhyming! Za adores the whiteboard. I think she will practice any subject if I allow her to practice on the whiteboard.

Those are our modified "word of the day" for our unfortunately hectic last days of summer vacation. Having a baby in the hospital is miserable and our "formal" learning was very limited.

I hope you enjoyed our word of the day series, elementary school edition!