JANUARY

Did  You Know?

RHYTHM is the longest English word without a vowel!  

School/Community Connection:

Primary:

Have your child name 10 articles of winter clothing.  Activity 1: Write them on sticky notes.  Have fun putting the words in alphabetical order.  Activity 2: Look for little words inside of the bigger words. E.g. snowsuit – snow, suit, it, no, now. 

Junior:

Business establishments with creative names for their shops are a rich source of word play in the environment.  For example:  Hair for a Good Time; Shear Elegance; The Cutting Edge.

Have your child come up with new shop names.  Together, with your child, play with words to create a new name for businesses.

FEBRUARY

Did  You Know?

Of all the languages in the world, English has the largest vocabulary: about 800,000 words!

School/Community Connection:

Primary:

Valentine’s Day- Use index cards to write 8 to 10 words about love and friendship.  Make two cards for each word.  Scramble them and lay them on a flat surface face down.  Take turns flipping one card over and trying to find the match.

Family Day- Grow a family: Cut out a tree trunk from any scrap paper.  Cut out some leaf shapes.  Label each with a family word- brother, sister, mom, etc. Repeat the activity with different themed words.

Junior:

Tired Word Triangles

Some words in the English language are over used e.g., nice, said, walked, sad.  With your child draw a triangle and place the over used word in the middle.  Have your child think of 3 synonyms (words that mean the same) , around the triangle.  Use a thesaurus to add to your triangle.

MARCH

Did  You Know?

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records the Finnish word: saippuakivikauppias, a soap seller, is the longest known palindrome in any language!

School/Community Connection:

Primary:

Play the magic square activity with your child.  Fold a piece of 8.5 by 11 blank paper accordion style to make a fan.  Brainstorm family rhyming words (e.g., at, bat, cat;  book, look, cook) and write one word on each section of the fan.  Work together, to create a poem using the rhyming words.

Junior:

Together with your child, investigate the origin of your town, city or street name.  Research, using the internet, or your local library.