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Kids Listen Activity Podcast

The Good Words Activity

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Fun with FUNGIBLE! activity sheet

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Now that you have listened to the episode, here are some things for you to do to respond to what you've heard!

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FUNGIBLE: Something that can be easily replaced, or exchanged for another, similar item.

 

1) Set a timer for one minute, and make a list of how many things you can spot that are fungible. Then make a second one-minute list of things you can see that are not fungible. After you’re done, compare your lists: how many things of each type did you spot? Which list had more things? If you are doing this activity with someone else, compare your lists. Did you find the same things? Are there any things that one person included on the "fungible" list and another included on the "not fungible" list? Why might that be?

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2) Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the "Little House" books, wrote Henry Ford's Own Story , in collaboration with Henry Ford himself. Do you think having him work on the book with her was likely to make it more accurate, or less accurate? Why? What parts do you think people might tell more accurately about themselves? What parts might be less accurate?

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Read/listen to this passage about Henry Ford's childhood, taken from the second chapter of Henry Ford's Own Story.

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In the winter he went to the district school, walking two miles and back every day

through the snow, and enjoying it. He did not care for school especially, although he

got fair marks in his studies, and was given to helping other boys “get their problems.”

Arithmetic was easy for him. His mind was already developing its mechanical trend.

 

“I always stood well with the teacher,” he says with a twinkle. “I found things ran

more smoothly that way.” He was not the boy to create unnecessary friction in his

human relations, finding it as wasteful of energy there as it would have been in any of

the mechanical contrivances he made. He “got along pretty well” with every one, until

the time came to fight, and then he fought, hard and quick.

 

Under his leadership, for he was popular with the other boys, the Greenfield school

saw strange things done. Henry liked to play as well as any boy, but somehow in his

thrifty ancestry there had been developed a strong desire to have something to show

for time spent. Swimming, skating and the like were all very well until he had

thoroughly learned them, but why keep on after that? Henry wanted to do something

else then. And as for spending a whole afternoon batting a ball around, that seemed

to him a foolish occupation.

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How do you think someone else telling this story about Henry Ford might tell it differently from their own point of view? What words might they use instead of the words Rose Wilder Lane and Henry Ford used?

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Tell a story about something that happened to you in a way that makes you appear to be the hero of the

story. You can write it down, or tell it aloud to another person. Then, tell the same story again in a way

that is unflattering to you.

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3) Have you ever had an experience similar to the "Do Over" about "The Popular Girls," when someone treated you like you were fungible? How did it make you feel? Using crayons, paints, clay, words, music, or anything else you can think of, make a piece of art about the feelings you had in that situation.

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4) Have you ever sung a "round," like "Frere Jacques," "Three Blind Mice," or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"? It's trickier than it might seem! You have to listen to the other voices and your own voice at the same time as you are singing. Try singing a round with someone else, taking turns singing the first, second, and third parts. Which part was easiest? If you are doing this activity on your own, try making a recording of yourself on an electronic device, and then sing a round with yourself!