Lexicon in Brookline

On a sleety Thursday night at the Driscoll School in Brookline, Massachusetts, over a hundred parents and students turned out for an evening in Lexicon. Maybe it was the offer of pizza that brought them, but the pizza ran out early, and they were cheerful anyway. We let the still-hungry hordes in to the ten stations staffed by parent and teacher volunteers, some of them in costume and in character. Miss Needle was wrapped in ribbons marked with numbers at irregular intervals, Lily of Flora was wreathed in flowers, and Zeta of Irrationality was dramatic, beautiful, and a little scary in her dress and long dark hair.

The kids, from grades 4 to 6, picked up their Lexicon Travel Guides and crowded around the tables. They fed synonyms to Emily and found metaphors for the Mistress of Metaphor. They measured with erasers and paperclips instead of rulers, and they relied on measurement to calculate the approximate value of pi. (They worried when their calculations didn't come out close "enough.") They coaxed the feuding parts of speech of Flora together by arranging colored petals marked with words into full, multicolored sentences. Tangram puzzles and the mirror maze were favorites, as usual. Kids and parents used word roots to make up words of their own, and they rescued and decorated words from the trashcans of Brevity.

What was so impressive was not just the turnout but the way parent involvement translated into kid enthusiasm and persistence. The kids wanted to complete each task and do it well. Parents came up to me to thank me for coming; all I wanted to do was tell them what great parents they are. I signed books so fast my signature got messier and messier.

To give some kids a break from the noise and activity, we reconvened in the computer room, where I talked to them about writing a book and where ideas come from. Then it was time to clear up and head back out into the sleet. But all of us involved with Lexicon came away elated at how a school community of dedicated staff and attentive parents can make learning such a celebration. Here's to the people of the Driscoll School, to Ellen Davidson and her math group, and especially to Izzy, the fourth grader who first invited me.

Lexicon at the Discovery Museums, Acton

The Acton Discovery Museums consist of a children's museum and a science museum tucked away off the main street of one of Boston's western suburbs. Sunday my team and the wonderful museum staff held a Lexicon Villages event there, with village stations scattered throughout the museum. At the door, Mr. Frank Lee Officious greeted visitors and gave them travel guides and pencils. Then he encouraged them to think of synonyms for Emily the Thesaurus. When they fed her he gave them Emily wristbands. Next the Mistress of Metaphor asked them to come up with metaphors to stir into her pot.

Upstairs, visitors found some math stations. In one they could measure and calculate pi; in another they used non-standard measures like paper clips to measure a book. They also had the chance to compare their stride lengths as they strode from one wall of the museum to another. Integrated into museum displays were two more stations where they could work on Tangram challenges or practice completing a maze while looking at it only in a mirror.

In a side room, my nephew Mat, a museum employee, and I staffed three word stations. In one, visitors constructed new words from Greek and Latin roots. In another, they formed flowers (sentences) from different colored petals (parts of speech). In the final station, they rescued words that had been discarded in Lexicon's village of Brevity. Visitors decorated the words - words like conflagration, iridescent, and rebellion - and carried them off to safety.

Two things were really fun about this event. First, the setting was great. The Science Discovery Museum isn't large, but every wall, corner, and staircase is crammed with objects for kids to explore, from the plumbing wall where you can direct water flow to the mist tornado to every kind of noise-making (musical?) instrument to hanging spheres that smash together to demonstrate conservation of momentum. Second, it's fun to see kids and parents interact over the Lexicon activities, which we can adapt on the spot to different ages.

Each time I hold one of these events, the volunteers come up with new twists and improvements, such as little signs describing the parts of speech or a chart made up of ribbon lengths visitors had cut for the diameters and circumferences of round objects they had measured. Eventually (soon) I'm going to be able to put the entire event guide up on the Lexicon website for anyone to see. That way schools or book clubs could either run their own event or know what they're getting into if they ask me to do so, and I'll know more kids and parents are playing together with words and numbers.

Dragon Books: Lexicon event and book signing

Here I am signing books for a friend and neighbor. Today, a beautiful sunny day, Dragon Books in Weston hosted the world premiere Lexicon event and book signing. The Tumblehome team wants to make each signing a fun family outing, so we had balloons, activities, a stand-in Emily the thesaurus, and even a visit from the Mistress of Metaphor, dunning visitors for meaty metaphors to stir into her pot.

Friends and neighbors came by with their dogs, children, grandchildren, and bicycles. They checked in with Frank Lee Officious, an official from Lexicon, who handed them a travel guide and showed them on their way. They found synonyms to feed Emily, made Tangrams of shapes found in the book, came up with metaphors, and did a mirror maze. They even bought 35 books.

Altogether we've developed ten different stations of activities for different audiences and settings - six more beyond those we used today. My partner in designing the activities and the Lexicon Travel Guide, a guru of getting everything together in time, is Kirsten Cappy of Curious City in Maine. She's a genius at drawing books and kids together through events that bring literature to life, and I'm amazed at her efficiency.

Next week I get to try out the full-scale Lexicon villages event at Alamosa Books in New Mexico. I have one huge suitcase packed with signs and materials, and I'll have to carry along another small one for clothes!