When planning my activities, I like to consult a holiday schedule–especially for Imagination Day (Wednesday) and Special Activity Day (Friday). Some of the holidays are silly (Talk Like a Pirate Day); some are serious (National Forgiveness Day); and some are educational, like yesterday–Dictionary Day.
I’ve actually been thinking about Dictionary Day for a couple of weeks. I love dictionaries, but I’m a word and writing geek, so it’s not a total surprise. I wanted to somehow make the dictionary fun for the kids, while teaching a bit at the same time. This is tricky in an after school program, though, especially on a Friday. The kids are checked out for the week; the last thing they want is an educational exercise.
At first I thought I’d create a picture dictionary coloring book for the younger kids and a dictionary of silly words for the older kids. But, the more I thought about these, the more I realized how much work would be involved and how stupid the kids would probably find them. So, I kept thinking. And thinking. And thinking.
Then I got hit by a Frisbee and got inspiration–I thought about how my friend and lexicographer, Erin McKean, would teach about dictionaries to young kids. I remembered her Boston Globe articles on word creation (Chillax and My Duro) and decided to go that route with the kids.
It’s fun knowing your kids so well that you know exactly how they’ll react to certain things that come out of your mouth. So, I planned to approach the activity as the most painful thing EVER, then twist it to something they’d love. I let them have a little free time, then I pulled them all into the open part of the room, handed out clipboards, and very excitedly said “Today is Dictionary Day!”
I got 12 very distinct groans.
“I thought that for Dictionary Day we could create our own After Care Dictionary!” I continued, keeping my voice upbeat and excited.
I got 12 even deeper groans followed by two, “I’m not doing this.”
“Wait,” I responded. “I think you might like this.”
“NO WAY!” I got from one of my boys, who got up and left the circle.
I continued, “So, I thought that if we were going to make our own dictionary, it would need to be our own words.”
“You mean, we get to make up our own words?” asked one of my kindergarteners.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean,” I responded.
I got 12 distinct cheers, and my boy returned to the circle. Suddenly, I had 12 kiddos screaming their ideas. I handed out a worksheet for them to fill out on their word–with blanks for the word, the part of speech, pronunciation, definition, origin, and the word used in a sentence.
One of my kids was in the bathroom as we started this, and she sneaked back into the room and went to play. I saw her playing and said, “Aren’t you going to join us?”
“No, I don’t want to do work.”
Mini-Miss-Val responded, “It’s not work! It’s awesome! We’re making up our own words! You have to do this!”
She joined the circle.
For 45 minutes we made up words and filled out our worksheets. Most of them never really did get the pronunciation section, so I let it go. Most of them did get “origin,” though, and some of them came up with very creative word origins. I showed the kiddos the cover of the dictionary and told them that Monday morning they’d have a copy of After Care’s Dictionary in their cubbies. Oh, and Miss Val was going to write a story using all of their words. Some of them were seriously disappointed that it wasn’t going to be ready for them to take home that day. I promised it would be worth waiting for.
It was so much fun, and completely successful. Below is a list of the words for our dictionary and the story I wrote using their words (including a few of their illustrations of the words). I hope you enjoy! And visit the project page if you’d like more information on the prep for this activity, including the worksheet I created.
After Care Dictionary
- Alwemliy. Noun. Definition: Blue sea. “I went to see the alwemliy.” Word History: “Just for fun.”
- Frickledork. Verb. Definition: Doing a handstand while burping and doing a split. “I’m going to go frickledork.” Word History: “Every once in a while you need to do something wacky.”
- Girplet. Noun. Definition: Related to a gerbil but it’s a bit fatter, and it runs on the wheel a lot more, but just as fat. “The girplet was running so fast on the wheel. He stopped and the wheel kept moving, so he flew to the top.” Word History: New, made-up animal.
- Ichaforgen. Noun. Definition: A fort. “I built a ichaforgen.” Word History: “For the fun of it.”
- Lafaduck. Noun. Definition: An animal similar to the pladadoof. “The lafaduck flopped.” Word History: “Nature messed up.”
- Lopascabadooba. Exclamation. Definition: Surprise. “Josiah was so lopascabadooba when he saw the silly pumpkins.” Word History: “To use sometimes if you want to.”
- Nakinak. Noun. Definition: A door. “He opened the nakinak to find a pacinak.” Word History: “To be silly.”
- Parn. Noun. Definition: A thing that you use that makes you and me act silly. “The parn made me do it!” Word History: “To be silly.”
- Qoleu. Noun. Definition: A secret password. “Qoleu, ok, let me in.” Word History: “For the fun of it.”
- Scoobxemt. Noun. Definition: Horrible person. “The scoobxemt hurt my feelings.” Word History: “For the fun of it.”
- Scrapoober. Verb. Definition: Drilling into something. “I scrapoober the wall.” Word History: “For the fun of it.”
- Shabadabababadingdong. Verb. Definition: Short, energetic, and no sense of humor; weird hands; three eyes. “You are a shabadabababadingdong.” Word History: “TV show.”
- Shaming. Noun. Definition: Normal snow, almost wet snow. “It’s shaming outside!” Word History: “I was talking about shame and then I saw it was snowing, so I accidentally said ‘shaming’!”
- The SF. Noun. Definition: Super Fish Communication System. “The SF is communicating with hundreds of fish every day.” Word History: “We want to more stuff about fish.”
- Wingerlink. Noun. Definition: A flying Beta fish. “The wingerlink surprised everyone when it flew out of the fish tank.” Word history: “To be silly.”
And now, for story time…
The Things We Saw
“Mama! You wouldn’t believe what we did at after care today. We went on an adventure!” Finn told his mother after being picked up from his after school program.
“What kind of adventure, Finn?” she asked in return, not prepared for the earful she was about to hear.
“The best kind of adventure, Mama!”
“Well, do tell!” Mama encouraged.
“Ok. Well, it all started when Miss Val told us about dictionary day. We were all kind of bored by the idea. I mean, really, who wants to look at dictionaries and learn about where words come from? But, then she said we got to make our own dictionary—full of words we made up! We grabbed clipboards and a worksheet from Miss Val and got started. But, then the craziest thing happened! As we wrote down our words, we traveled all over the universe and saw these things that we thought we were making up. They already existed! And we saw them!”
“What did you see, Finn?”
“Well, Mama, it all started at the Alwemliy. One second we were in the preschool room, and the next second we were at the Alwemliy. The Alwemliy is a great big blue sea, and I don’t think it’s on earth. It was magical. Miss Val let us all jump in! In our clothes! She even jumped in. A few of the younger kids were scared, but she said it would be ok because everyone floats in the Alwemliy. And we totally did!
“Oh, and in the water at the Alwemliy we saw other things we thought didn’t really exist. First there were the Wingerlinks. They’re flying Beta fish, and they were so friendly. They float at the surface of the Alwemliy, and every once in a while they get sick of the water and jump out. But! When they jump out they fly! It was the craziest thing I ever saw! Or, I thought it was. But then I saw the SF. We had to go in deeper water to see the SF. It’s a super secret system, and we saw it!”
“What’s the SF, Finn?” His mother asked, completely engrossed in her son’s adventure.
“Oh, the SF is so cool! It’s the Super Fish Communication System. A kid made this system so we’d know what fish are thinking, because otherwise we’ll never know enough about fish. Isn’t that brilliant? The people listening to the fish have special underwater headphones, and they sit on the bottom of the sea on special, really heavy chairs (so they don’t float), and they listen to the fish talk. There’s a microphone on the fish, and no one but those two kids who made the SF know how it works. It’s crazy and wicked cool!
“Oh! And you know what’s so fun? Doing a frickledork in the Alwemliy is so much easier than trying to do it on land.”
“Finn, what is a frickledork?” asked his Mama.
“It’s doing a handstand while burping and doing the splits. It’s so cool to do it in the Alwemliy, though, because you float! You don’t have to worry about falling over! Also? Burping in the water? Totally cool.
“After we all saw the SF and did frickledorks in the deep water, Miss Val said it was time to go. We thought we were going back to the preschool room, but instead we went to the forest where we saw an ichaforgen set up just for us!”
“Finn, what’s an ichaforgen?” asked Mama.
“It’s a fort! Oh, Mama! You can’t believe we saw at the ichaforgen! The ichaforgen was a safe-haven for a bunch of animals, including the girplet and the lafaduck. The girplet and the lafaduck were my favorite because they were so funny! The girplet is related to a gerbil, but it’s a bit fatter and it runs on the wheel a lot more. Sometimes it even runs so fast on the wheel that when the wheel stops, he flies to the top! There are all kinds of wheels, all different sizes, all over the ichaforgen—inside and outside. Some of them were even big enough for us to try! It was so much fun!
“The lafaduck was really funny too. It’s related to the pladadoof, and it flops all over the grounds of the ichaforgen. It’s got three tongues that hang out of its mouth, and it’s got this weird platform-like leg that keeps it upright. They’re so funny.
“After we played outside the ichaforgen for a while, we wanted to go check out inside. To go inside we had to go through the nakinak. The nakinak is just the ichaforgen’s special word for a door. To get through the nakinak, though, we had to know the secret password. Miss Val told us it was ‘qoleu,’ which is pronounced like ‘KA-low.’ So, we all lined up in front of the nakinak and shouted, ‘Qoleu!’ and the nakinak magically opened. It was so cool!
“As we all walked inside, we couldn’t help but scream, ‘Lopascabadooba!’ because we were all so surprised at how amazing the ichaforgen was. Inside we all got to scrapoober—that’s a special kind of drilling—into the walls. Our favorite kinds of candy just started to fall out of the holes we scrapoobered. It was amazing! And, Miss Val let us eat as much as we wanted! It was so yummy! I think the ichaforgen is my favorite place ever!
“But then we ran into a scoobxemt, and we were all scared.”
“What’s a scoobxemt?” Mama asked.
“It’s a horrible person. It looks like a normal person but has a scary look on its face. And the scobxemts like to shabadabababadingdong, which is just plain scary. Oh, shabadabababadingdonging is acting short, energetic, having no sense of humor and three eyes. But, Miss Val told the scoobxemt to leave the ichaforgen, and it listened! So, we got to play more in the ichaforgen.
“In one of the rooms of the ichaforgen we found some parn. When you touch the parn, you act so silly! Everyone in that room was just crazy with the silliness. But, as soon as you left the room you stopped being silly. It was all the parn’s fault. But, it was fun being silly.
“After we investigated the whole ichaforgen, Miss Val said it was time to go back to school. So we left the ichaforgen and closed the nakinak. When we got outside, though, we saw that it was shaming! It was the most beautiful shame that we had ever seen. It looked just like snow, but it wasn’t really cold outside. It was magical snow that comes even when it’s warm! We all stuck out our tongues and ate the shame. It tasted like a snow cone! It was awesome.
“As we ate the shame, we were transported back to the preschool room. We thought all of our moms and dads would be waiting, but only one minute had actually passed. So, we got to clean up the dictionary worksheets and go play. It was the best after care ever! Can I go back tomorrow?”
“Sure, honey! Tomorrow it is! Let’s go home.” And they did. That night Finn dreamed of Alwemliy and the ichaforgen all night long. The next morning he woke up with the biggest smile when he remembered that it all really did happen.
