onomotopaiea.... or something like that

i'm currently doing a poetry unit with my kids and we're looking at figurative language right now. today, among others, we were talking about onomotopaiea (spelling?).

for those of you who do not remember (it's ok, these things happen) it is when the word sounds like the noise it describes. an example: boom. crack. zip. etc.

so we were going over it and i was having my kids come up with their own examples, which i could tell they didn't fully get (some examples of words put down: fireworks, gun shot, etc) so i stop and i ask the class, what noise does a bee make??

and the entire class goes "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

and then i go, how would you spell that? and the kids kinda look at me, and i supply, "how about b-u-z-z" now say the word that we just spelt and the kids all go "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

we then repeat with dogs (we had roof, arff, and woof going on, so it took us awhile)

by the end of the period my class sounded like quite a zoo.

however, my kids got it!

i'm thinking about having my do now (the first five minutes of class time) be a sound do now, we could continue the zoo! chickens, cats, etc. we'll see.