Friday, November 6, 2009

freeze like an ice cube!

Today we spent an hour and a half outside at a nearby park off of school grounds. It's fabulous because although it's a very short walk from school the whole walk is through the woods- which creates an immediate imaginative walk for five year olds.

"There's a crocodile!" they yelled, excitedly pointing at what could have been a small creek during a heavy rain storm.

Our fall adventures were fabulous, but cold. Really cold. After watching my little ones' teeth chatter together as they ran around I suggested that I take a small group of cold children back to school. (If a five year old asks to go inside while playing on an exciting new playground you know they are seriously cold.)

"Little one is freezing!" I said, "Let's go!"

"I'm freezing!" Little one agreed, "Let's go!"

As we walked back to school we kept chatting about how cold we were, but how we could really tell Little One was freezing. One of my little ones full of spunk kept asking, "But why is Little One freezing?" I thought she meant, 'how is she colder than the rest of us?'

Then she stopped walking, grabbed Little One, held her still and said, "Stop! I want to see you freezing!"

Which was when I realized she may be confused about what freezing means.

"Little One is just really, really cold," I started to explain. "Sometimes we say we're freezing when we're really, really cold. It just means we're super-cold- we're not actually freezing."

"Oh" my curious friend sighed, disappointed. "You mean she's not about to freeze like an ice cube?"

Sometimes I forget that my children just learning English may not get all the ins and outs of the language. I can only imagine what she was envisioning in her head- Poor Little One, slowly turning into a frozen-solid five year old right there in the forest.

1 comment:

Dragonfly said...

They are so literal!

Thanks for blogging so regularly...I really look forward to seeing what is happening!

I, too, have English language learners, sometimes they have to learn Spanish BEFORE they learn English. Their native language is totally oral...not written.