Kindergarteners are just better at naming things than we are. I mean, we’ve all adopted “hanitizer,” right? pic.twitter.com/AskCYKMfFd
— Mrs. F (@ms_frazzled) August 16, 2022
Mrs. F, a kindergarten teacher in California, knows the importance of adapting her communication to meet the needs of her audience. Right now, that's 5-year old children.
Her kids have a language of her own. She explains that this is because kids will naturally create words that fit into their pre-existing mental schemas. A lot of words invented by little kids simply make more sense than adult words. Why not call the lower half of your leg your foreleg if the lower part of your arm is the forearm?
Yes!! If you want to geek out about child development and get into the “why” behind these awesome word creations, Piaget’s schemas are a great place to start. Basically kids are trying to fit new knowledge/concepts into categories they already know. Piaget calls these “schemas.” https://t.co/izqdmsY0Ia
— Mrs. F (@ms_frazzled) August 16, 2022
When she was a toddler, my eldest daughter referred to our stroller as the gogogol, presumably because it was used to go places. This was a superior designation to stroller, so my wife and I started using it, too.