ROMKids

SSSSsss… c-CAW! RrAwr! GIRAFFE!

(an animal story)

I used to walk through the halls of my high school (yes, high school - I don’t know what was wrong with me either) making animal noises. Not the normal ones like “moo” and “oink”, but the more obscure ones (I guess it’s the hipster in me). For instance,

my impression of the Komodo dragon had a sort of snake and bark sound,

and the giraffe, since I had no idea what sound they make (do you?) was just, “giraffe, giraffe!”.

I pretty much made the sounds up as I went along.

I guess it’s weird that I did this in my teenage years, since unabashedly making animal sounds is definitely a fun aspect of every kid I’ve ever encountered. But, the call of the wild never really left me. I remember I taught a 5 year old group at Saturday Morning Club once called Animal Alphabet. Every week as we walked through the galleries, we would make the sounds of the animals we saw in the cases. It would start pretty calmly

… stalking past the tiger, we would “purrrr”;

…tiptoeing passed the snakes, we would all speak in parseltongue;

…flapping past the birds, we’d sing.

In the end, the kids abandoned the idea of mimicking different animals and decided all they wanted to do was roar since it was the most fun – even when we passed the giant squid, though it did evoke a few “ooh”s and “aaah”s.

Pretending to be an animal is so liberating. It allows you to fully embrace your imagination and become something new entirely. You can fly like the albatross, jump like a cricket, even nap like cat. I love how kids can snap into such imaginative roles and really run with it.

NOTES

• More on April 27/28 Nature Weekend 2013 HERE!
• More on LAST YEAR’S Animal Weekend HERE!
• Archived post HERE!