Use fridge magnets to boost your kid's vocabulary

Michelle at Scribbit uses fridge magnets for a higher purpose:

When my oldest was five I used our refrigerator magnets to showcase a Word of the Week. With the definition nearby on an index card the idea was to reward her for correctly using the word in a sentence. "Provoke," "jovial," "morose," "taciturn," "agitate" -- we focused on adjectives expressing emotion or nouns and verbs that had easy synonyms that she already knew. I gave out M&Ms for correct usage.

I knew it was successful when Grace came home from school and I asked how her day was she replied, "Not good Mommy. I am morose."

Surprised and trying not to laugh I asked, "Why?"

"Because Hayden provoked me again."

Comments

[caro]

What a delightful example of a hack in action!

[austin-dad]

Here is something else you can teach your kids through fridge magnets: design and style.

So, this sounds a little crazy, but I am way picky about fridge magnets -- particularly the font.

Recently I gave away my old set of fridge magnets and got a much better font. Think of it as art appreciation.

Maybe my kid will be a web designer when he grows up.

Here is a link to a grad speech by Steve jobs that not only talks about fonts, but also has some parenting stuff in it too.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

or watch it on google video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-204609026222503944

[erm.]

Please consider the ramifications of giving a five-year-old a college professor's vocabulary.

It may make you feel like she's intelligent. Or like you're intelligent. Or something.

It may also make other kids feel like she's an unintelligible weirdo, which could have a huge impact on her social development.

Just think about it, is all I'm sayin'.

[Buz]

I would think that as long as your kids still had the base vocabulary, they would still be OK in school. Another cool thing to do would be use prefixes and suffixes and maybe even Greek and Latin root words. A few Latin and Greek root words can go a long way toward figuring out scientific and medical terminology that may come up later.