Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Rain Languages

As the girls eat oatmeal at the table, I listen to them talk and watch them play. It is an odd morning, because a two-hour freezing rain delay gives them an unexpected window of time before Glady goes to school, and Juliet has no kindergarten this morning.

Pippa is commenting on the rain, complete with a hand pantomime. "Raindrops are dropping down, down, and if a person goes outside they will get wet, and go into puddles; splash, splash. Then they will have to go inside and take a bath... in chocolate milk!" she finishes with a gleeful cackle.

Juliet and Glady want to pick my brains of foreign words this morning. Juliet learned "bon appetit" somewhere, and when they found out that I knew what it meant they wanted to know other words. I'd love to know why they wanted to know how to say "giraffe" is Russian. I may look that up for them... I didn't know half the words they wanted, all the Spanish and French I learned in school has ebbed out of my brain. I think if I teach the girls a language it needs to be one they can practice periodically.

Glady has decided that she is going to invent her own language, with its own alphabet. She just brought a sample to me. There are a lot of curlicues, since she has been teaching herself cursive, and loves a pretty flourish.

The girls are cleaning their room now, and Pippa just ran out saying "Glady is trying to kill me!" so I had better go supervise.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It seems your daughters are blessed with wondering and creative minds, and I'm glad their mother encourages them.