Monday, November 7, 2011

Word collector

I am working on one final project for the closet and am collecting four letter words.  I have a pocket organizer which I will hang on the back of the door that has six rows with four columns.  I thought it would be cool to find six words that I can stencil across each pocket and I am having fun thinking of the words I should stamp. 
There are lots of words, like Work, Play, Live, Give.  This is good too:

And while I was searching, I found this inspiration for the dining room table:
I might be stenciling for quite a while now!  If you're inspired too, here's a site with directions:
But back to the pocket project.  I wish I could use some 5 letter words too, like Laugh.
Naomi Shiyab Nye told a story about finding a young boy's word book, a collection of words he had learned to spell, and she turned to the L page.  This is what she found:
  • Live
  • listen
  • love
  • laugh
  • linger
  • lounge
  • long
  • learn
She said we could certainly learn a lot from this short list poem.  It's a great list to live by.  I could definitely use these words, especially long.  Isn't it wonderful to long for something?  It's so different from want or need.  So I have some beautiful inspiration for my pockets!
But then I had another idea.  Last week my son got a personal narrative essay back from the teacher.  He had written about going to Massachusetts and the second sentence read, "We all unpacked our junk..."  Well, the teacher crossed out junk and wrote in supplies!  Really, supplies?  We don't call it supplies.  My son doesn't say supplies.  I like the word junk.  So I'm also thinking of writing "JUNK" on every pocket because it's so apt, (the pockets will be full of junk!) and because I just want to affirm that his word choice in the essay was right on. 
I might also include the four-letter word Pray.  It's a good reminder each  morning and will be tonight when I meet his teacher for parent conferences!

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