Lindsay L. O'Connor

I know it’s spring break and all but my life has been so crazy hectic and busy that I finally have a moment to post a couple little stories about my kiddos.

I was reading Amelia Bedelia because we’ve been talking about multiple-meaning words (homonyms/homophones/etc.). If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading her books, Amelia Bedelia is a housekeeper who takes the most literal meaning of everything, such as drawing a picture of the drapes when she is told to “draw the drapes.” The kids, of course, think this is absolutely hilarious and can’t get over the fact that she doesn’t understand the intended meaning of words and phrases used by others. One of my kids said, “Mrs. O’Connor, I think she needs thinking lessons!” hehe I love the term and think we should start referring to school as “thinking lessons.”

Even better, I was reading another book to the kids and it had the word “tame” in it. I paused, wrinkled my brow, and acting thoughtful, asked, “What do you think the word ‘tame’ means?” Of course we had many off-the-wall guesses, as I’ve come to expect, but one of them outshined the others. One little boy raised his hand and then proceded to tell the story about when the devil took Jesus into the wilderness and “tamed” him for 40 days. I explained that “tempted” was a different word than “tamed,” but I had to stifle a laugh at the thought of Jesus being “tamed” by the devil. Nice to know that he knows his Bible stories though! =-)