Gregory is Like a . . .
Gregory was confused about the title of our family book, “City of Nouns.” See, he was just a toddler when the quote that inspired the title was first uttered. In a nutshell: I’ve been writing down and saving little vignettes from my daily life since 1996. This has produced quite an eclectic collection of “quotes and thoughts,” over 600 pages’ worth, but there’s not any one theme running through this book. It’s a book about everything, a “City of Nouns.”
Gregory looked perplexed.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“But what’s a noun?”
Aha! The perfect opening for a grammar discussion! “A noun is a person, place or thing. Can you give me an example of a word that is a noun?”
“Ummmm…”
“Train!” I shouted. “Bus. Sign. Girl. Backpack.” (We were driving to school.) “Now you.”
“Tree!” he shouted.
“Yes!”
“Street!”
“Yes!”
“Crossing guard!”
“O.K!” Seeing that this was working so well, I decided to introduce the concept of a simile. “So,” I said, “a noun is a person, place, or thing. Very simple, right?”
“Yep.”
“Here’s one that’s a little more complicated. Do you know what a simile is?”
“Nope.”
“Basically, a simile is a word used to compare nouns that are mostly very different, like when I say, “This car is like a sloth,” the car isn’t really a sloth, but it’s moving as slow as one. So I can use a figure of speech to describe to you how slowly the car is moving. Get it?”
“Ummm…”
“Ok, let me try another one,” I said. “Bradley’s backpack is like a UPS truck two days before Christmas.”
“That’s heavy!”
“RIGHT! Ok, you try.”
“Got one!” Gregory shouted.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’m so cold, I can use my nose drippings as chop sticks.”
That’s my son, clever as Mr. Krabs’ dead rat sandwich. (Yeah, we watch SpongeBob way too much in our house.)
Gross, but clever gross. Can’t wait to see what Finn thinks of nouns and similes. Right now he would only want to know if he could eat them …like raisins.
Comment by Leah — March 14, 2007 @ 10:35 am
This post is a hoot — a riot, really. Heh heh.
Comment by Adam Squier — March 17, 2007 @ 6:47 am