Dear Families,

Today in Playing with Words, we began to explore the relationship between language and change. After reading Charles Shaw’s It Looked Like Spilt Milk, we took a walk outside to observe, draw, and discuss the shapes we saw in the clouds. We discovered how these shapes changed over time (from Thor’s Hammer to an erupting volcano! From a tiger to a megaphone!), and helped one another to see and imagine the same shapes we saw, using the power of description.

Back in the classroom, we practiced categorization and comparison. Students brainstormed lists of things that change, and put them into groups based on their own criteria. At our three wordplay centers in the classroom, students then rotated between a nonverbal charade activity, a comparison generator with tactile objects, and a set of writing activities to be completed in their class notebooks. The lists and comparisons we wrote today will lead us into a more detailed study of figurative language for tomorrow. At the end of the afternoon, we also made our own Wordplay Booklets—homemade books that we’ll use to transcribe our favorite instances of wordplay we come up with over the course of the week. I’m excited to keep going!

Optional extension activity: The English language has changed greatly over time, and evolved from other, older languages. Have your student look up a word in the dictionary, and show them where its language of origin is listed in the definition. Help them find the origins of all their favorite words.

Additional reading: Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker; In November by Cynthia Rylant