Language Fun With Kids

‘Fun’ being the key word

Kids always learn more when the learning is fun. The same holds true for adults, although many adults have forgotten how to have fun (and therefore stop learning new things).

There was no school this last Friday and my daughter and her hubby both had to work so I went over to their house to spend the day with my two beloved granddaughters. I did NOT go over there to babysit! I don’t do babysitting. I don’t go over there to lord over them and be some authoritarian parental figure. I go over there to PLAY with them.

For years I have been telling them that I am NOT the boss; that they are! I am only there to talk with them, play with them and do whatever they order me to do. I am their equal; just a big and old kid. And that is how they treat me.

That’s right, I’m the cool grandpa.

But I have to admit that I employ trickery. I always try to add a little learning to the games we play. When they are having fun playing a game they don’t realize that they are learning something new. They don’t want to learn, they want to play. If I were to say to them, “Okay, now I’m going to teach you some stuff,” they would have none of it and order me to stop and play instead.

It can be quite a challenge to teach through play but it can be rewarding for both the girls and for me. I invariably find that I learn a lot, too.

So before I went over to their house on Friday I was racking my brain trying to come with a new game for us to play and for something to teach through that game. I try to come up with a new game every visit but it’s starting to get difficult.

And then it hit me. I would teach them a tiny bit of Spanish. Of course, I don’t speak Spanish so it would definitely be a learning experience for me as well.

I got out a sheet of paper and my trusty dusty Spanish/English dictionary. I searched for a dozen words that any six or nine-year-old could relate to. On the paper I wrote the Spanish word followed by its pronunciation and then its equivalent English word.

I started with all the Spanish words for colors. (That would make coloring fun, I thought.) Then I added some words for animals and the word for house and for eyes. (I thought it would reinforce the color words by talking about how I have ojos verde and how they have ojos azul. Last, but certainly not least, I included the words for grandpa and grandma (abuelo and abuela).

Soon after arriving I told the girls that I had a new learning game we could play. As soon as I said it I realized that I accidentally said the word, ‘learning.’

The nine-year-old replied, “I don’t wanna learn. I wanna play. Learning is what we gotta do in school all day.”

“Learning isn’t just for school. And the game isn’t really about learning. It’s just that in order to play the game we’ve got to learn just a few new words.”

From my shirt pocket I pulled out the piece of paper on which I had written the Spanish words and their meanings. Before I could even unfold the paper the nine-year-old came over and ripped it out of my hands then started reading it.

I went through all the words with the girls and taught them how to pronounce them then I explained the game, “Okay, here are the rules of the game. For the rest of the day every time you want to say one of these English words you have to use the Spanish word instead, okay? You can have this paper in case you forget what word to use. So for the rest of the day you cannot call me Grandpa. You have to call me Abuelo. Then at the end of the day will be the funnest part of the game. We’re gonna freak someone out. I’ll explain that later. In the meantime we just need to practice saying these words.”

The two girls looked at each other then almost simultaneously said, “Okay.”

The nine-year-old finally got the hang of calling me Abuelo by noon but the six-year-old kept calling me Grandpa. (Old habits are hard to break.)

The girls have an annoying little wiener dog who is always right there in the middle of our playing. The nine-year-old finally got the hang of saying perro instead of dog. The six-year-old kept saying gato (cat).

The plans called for me to play with the girls all day until around 5:30 when their other grandma was scheduled to pick them up and take them with her to their other grandparent’s house for the weekend.

Around 5 o’clock I told them about the final part of the game, “When your grandma comes to pick you up and she comes through that door I want you to greet her by saying, hola abuela. The very last thing your grandma will expect is to be greeted by her granddaughters in Spanish. It will freak her out. Does that sound like fun?”

The girls got excited and practiced saying, hola abuela.

I continued, “And when you get to your grandparent’s house I want you to call your other grandpa Abuelo. Call them Abuela and Abuelo all weekend long. That should freak them out, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” said the nine-year-old.

“And take that paper with you so you can practice saying those other words all weekend long, too. That way you can keep freaking them out all weekend.”

Well, the other grandma finally showed up and when she walked in the door the two girls ran up to her and practically screamed, “Hola, Abuela!”

The other grandma froze in her tracks. With jaw dropped, she looked back and forth at the two girls. Then, with an accusatory expression on her face, she turned to look at me.

I smiled.

The nine-year-old began jumping up and down while clapping, “We’re learning Spanish! We’re learning Spanish!”

This from a girl who just hours before said that she didn’t want to learn anything.

Sorry Madonna but girls aren’t the only ones who just want to have fun. Kids of all ages and gender also just want to have fun. And fun is exactly what I had on Friday.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Writings of White Feather Archive

And speaking of fun…