I overheard a smart and observant little girl at the grocery store today. She looked to be about eight, and she was in the produce section with her mother. She was trying to put a word together, and I heard her say,"Plum. P-l-u-m...add an 'e' and it makes 'plume.' Mom, what does plume mean?" I was excited about the little girl's discovery and disappointed by her mother's less than enthusiastic response: "Oh. That must be one of your new 'list' words. What should we get for dinner tonight?"
It was kind of funny that the grocery incident took place this afternoon, because earlier in the day I was struck by the sizable vocabulary in this book:
Keep in mind, I was reading to five children, ages two to ten. Here is some of the vocabulary in the book:
whopper, hauled, coincidences, revealed, apoplectic (confession: I had to look this one up), proceeded, devoted, pleasantries, peering, tam-o-shanter (Mary Margaret asked about that one!), satisfy, portcullis, ragged, sheepishly, gasped, sumptuous, gnashing, phase, clutching, prospered, etc...
Do you get the idea? The kids were enjoying every minute of this delightful story, and so was I!
Who knows, maybe the mother and her daughter in the store went home and looked up the word, "plume," together. I hope so! At any rate, I was thinking about all the opportunities we have to teach our kids that might we miss if we are not in tune! We learn so much just from simple conversations. Of course, there are days when we are tired or busy with another child, but if we aren't careful it can so quickly become a habit to be non-responsive to our children's queries. It's all about AWARENESS and really listening to another person.
Ahhhhh...I fall so far short of awareness. Thanks for allowing me to digress; I have renewed my ambitions to be present and interested in my children and what they have to say!! Every moment we can begin anew...Every moment we can begin AWARE!
