More word-of-the-day fun for April! Here are the fun words we will be playing with this month.
- jape: a trick or practical joke.
- gambol: to dance and skip about in play.
- longueur: a tedious passage in a work of literature or performance art.
- flummox: to confuse; to perplex.
- grandiloquent: expressed in a lofty style; pompous; bombastic.
- aegis: a shield; protection.
- nescience: lack of knowledge or awareness.
- chimerical: merely imaginary; fanciful.
- impugn: to call in question; to make insinuations against.
- frisson: a brief moment of intense excitement.
- portend: to foreshadow; to bode.
- pulchritude: beauty.
- susurrus: a whispering or rustling sound.
- labile: open to change; apt or likely to change.
- outré: unconventional; eccentric; bizarre.
- etiolate: to blanch or bleach; to make sickly.
- ephemeral: lasting a very short time.
- quiddity: the essence or nature of a thing.
- crepuscular: pertaining to twilight.
- stormy petrel: a type of seabird; also, one fond of bringing strife.
- peccadillo: a slight offense; a petty fault.
- invidious: tending to provoke envy or ill will.
- paladin: a champion of a cause.
- gainsay: to contradict; to deny.
- imbroglio: a complicated and embarrassing state of things.
- somnolent: drowsy; also, tending to cause sleepiness.
- ken: perception, view; especially, reach of sight or knowledge.
- eleemosynary: relating to charity; charitable.
- bumptious: crudely, presumptuously, or noisily self-assertive.
- mellifluous: flowing sweetly or smoothly.
"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words."
Genesis 49:21
Hunter is 5 years, 0 months old
I follow your website from time to time and I realy like how you teach your son. Can I ask you how you teach these words? Every day you teach one, does he memorize the definition too? Do you repeat the words later on as you progress? Does he remember any of the words you each him in lets say 6 months? How many times do you teach the new word in a day? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteKatalin
This has actually been somewhat of a sporadic thing and mostly just for fun. I got the idea after contemplating on the idea that kids between the ages of two and six are learning an average of I think ten new words per day, and that is without anybody specifically teaching them. So I decided that it would be a good idea to put interesting words in his environment for him to absorb.
ReplyDeleteAs for teaching, we usually just read the word of the day some time in the morning (usually at the beginning of school time), read the definition, and then act it out or explain it. Then we try to use it throughout the day. It is just a fun game we play together.
We hang up past words on a bulletin board and review them before we introduce the new one of the day. I will sometimes keep a week's or month's worth up for review.
He's not required to memorize them and whether or not he remember the words one month or one year later just depends on my consistency in actually remembering and using the words in regular speech, although he will sometimes remember some weird things even if I don't! There are a lot of fun words that have become a part of our "family vocabulary" so to speak and a lot that have just fallen by the wayside and been mostly forgotten.
But even if he forgets some of them, it doesn't bother me at all, as my goal is exposure to a large vocabulary and developing an interest of words and their meanings and origins.
Hi....wow! this is really cool and a great idea. I am impressed that you do with your son who is only 5. I have been reading your blog for a while also. I already follow the Doman method with my 1 yr old daughter. I like reading your blog as it give me ideas of things to try as she gets older.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you are relaxed even if your son doesn't remember these words. I would get a little discouraged. Great job!