Teaching new vocabulary

While in the car yesterday, I had the opportunity to teach my 4-yo some new words: animate and inanimate.

I don't remember exactly how the conversation got started; he probably made some statement about how some of his toys move and some don't, or something like that...Anyway, I decided to turn the conversation into a teaching moment, and taught him about animate vs. inanimate objects.

He enjoyed having me quiz him, too, after I had explained the difference. He guessed wrong at first on some of the tricky ones (like car), but after a while he seemed to understand the difference pretty well. He even seemed to understand when I explained to him that sometimes people make believe that some things are animate, but that in real life they are not (like the toys in Toy Story, or the trains in Thomas the Tank Engine). Actually, with the Thomas example, he figured out for himself that the trains were inanimate, because they had drivers who drove them; but then he pointed out that they could talk on their own, so their mouths were animate.

A while later at dinner, after a very fun and busy afternoon, I prompted him to tell Daddy about what we learned in the car and he couldn't remember at the moment as he had other things foremost in his mind. But that's okay. I figure the information is now stored somewhere, and maybe someday he will amaze his teacher.

Anyway, it was a good teaching moment, and it's always fun to witness the light coming on and the gears turning in my kids' brains as they realize or figure out something new.