I’m Just Curious: Words

by Debbie Walker

This afternoon has been just wonderful with our first and second graders. I’m not exaggerating. When you introduce words to a child (18 of them) and they get excited about what they can do with these words, their teacher and I couldn’t help but get excited. You see we are word lovers as well.

The activity started out as a project to write Christmas cards (yes, I did say Christmas). Their first task was to come up with words they might want to use for their cards.

I pointed out that sometimes when I write, if I have trouble coming up with the subject for a column, I will start thumbing through magazines and books for ideas. So….

I dug out all of our Christmas story books for them to go through on their word hunt. Their teacher took them through a process where they all had a chance to look over the books for “their” words. The process I believe was called a “Book Pass.”

I was pleased to see them with their answer, for each of them to have used all the books, not just the one given to them. We also have special dictionaries for the class. Sometimes in a free time the kids will choose a dictionary to look at. Word, word, words!