The Power of Words

Happy Friday families! This week we've learned so much about bears (just ask your child and hear what they have to say)! Our bear study will continue next week as we explore the life cycle and diet of different bears. One thing I've noticed this week is that we need to be exposing children to more action words (verbs) and describing words so instead of saying "the bear go up the tree" they will have the vocabulary to say "the bear climbed quickly up the tall tree." Here are some of the action words we will focus on next week: climb, crawl, growl, eat, hunt, run, sleep, stand, swim, walk. At such a young age we really don't have to do anything more than use this type of vocabulary ourselves in front of them - there's no need to push children to use it. They will pick the vocabulary up from simply hearing it used and will eventually add it to their personal vocabulary. In class, we will use these words in fun ways, like: playing charades which is acting out the word and letting other children guess the word, and through creative movement. Try to use these words and other rich vocabulary at home as well to increase your child's exposure to rich vocabulary. The boys and girls in our class are lucky enough to speak TWO languages so remember that this idea of using a more rich vocabulary applies not only to English but the language you speak at home. Children have a remarkable way of transferring knowledge - so learning verbs in Chinese or Spanish will eventually transfer to English with work at school.

Enjoy your weekend families!