F. H. E. Monday #2

Last night I told Dan that it was his turn to plan FHE. He pulled out the book and picked one, and I don't have the book with me but I remember the activity.

The book gave us fifteen lists with six random things on each of them, words like "circus" "Winter" "mother" or "tree". I would read a list to him, word by word, and without saying anything he was supposed to write down the first word that he thought of when I read him a word. So I would say  "tree" and he would write down "leaves" or whatever it was that came to him first. Then we would switch and he would read to me and I would write down what I first thought of.

After we did that, I would go back to the original list and try and guess what he had written down for each word. So it would go something like this...

M: First word is "tree" so... leaves? Green? Bark? Brown? Rough? Stump?
H: Not even close.
M: Tree... hugger? Tree... chopper?
H: Yeah, no.
M: All right, moving on... next word is "flower" Um... colorful? Pretty? Sparkly? Leaves? Petals?
H: Petals, you got it.
M: Ok, next word...

This taught me that Husband Man and I think really differently. One word was "mother". I was guessing things like "stubborn" "happy" "pretty" "loving" and he had written down "in-law". He would often think of continuations, so if the word was "football" he would put "field" or something like that. Not all the time, but often. When he was telling me words I would see pictures in my mind, either of the object or something related to it. So he would say "dog" and I would see a picture of the dog, and I would recognise his ears first so I would put "ears". If he said something more abstract I'd see something related to it, so "dreams" made me think of clouds.


Like I said, this really taught me that Husband Man and I think differently-- A LOT differently. We did two lists each time, and the first time he guessed five out of the twelve words I wrote down and I only got something like three. We did another round, and he got five again and I got... none. His brain works differently from mine, and so he would think of other things first than I would. I always knew we thought differently, but this really reinforced it and so when we have misunderstandings I hope I remember this and realise that he doesn't always see things the same way I do.

Plus this activity was just fun in general. "The word was "autumn" and you put... "ottoman"? How on earth did you get that??" Hahaha-- Try it sometime! It's an easy and fun activity!

By the way, I'm listening to a song from the Prince of Persia soundtrack. This soundtrack is one of my favorites, go listen to it!