Spelling Examples
We’re doing spelling as part of first grade, and Hans is actually enjoying it. However, 9 times out of 10 he feels compelled to amend my example sentence.
Mom: “Skins. Skins. When the boy falls on the sidewalk, he skins his knee.” Hans: “OR: When the man wants bacon, he skins the pig!” Mom: “Um. Yes. Skins.”
Mom: “Frees. Frees. The man frees his dog from the kennel.” Hans: “OR: The dog freezes in the ice!” Mom: “No…Frees. Set free. Made free. Frees.”
Mom: “Tin. Tin. Laura’s cup is made of tin.” Hans: “You should say, ‘Laura and Mary’s cup is made of tin.’ They have to share!” Mom: “Right.”
Mom: “Mr. Skinner’s. Mr. Skinner’s. Mr. Skinner’s dog needs to be fed. Mr. Skinner’s house is for sale. Mr. Skinner’s.” Hans: “OR: Mr. Skinner’s cat needs to be fed.” He spells “Mr. Skinner’s” with the apostrophe, to my utter astonishment. Mom: “How did you know you should put an apostrophe before the ‘s’?!” Hans, looking uncertain: “Um…” Mom: “Did you look at the book when I went to get Ilse?” Hans: “No.” Mom: “You didn’t look at the book?” Hans: “Well, I just read the book before school. I saw it said “Mr. Skinner’s” and when you said it, I just thought, ‘Huh! Maybe I should write an apostle.’” Mom: “Apostrophe. Ok. Yes, you do need an apostrophe because there’s not more than one Mr. Skinner, we’re talking about something that belongs to Mr. Skinner. [insert 2 minute discussion of plurals and possessives and apostrophes.]
next word
Mom: “Winners. Winners. We are all winners.” (said with a slightly sarcastic voice) Hans: “But there is only one winner and the other person is the loser!” Mom: “Well, they want you to spell winners. Winners.” Hans: “I guess they just don’t know.” Mom: “Spell winners.” Hans writes ‘winner’s’ Hans: “I just thought I needed to bop the s on the head with the apostalee.” Mom: “Apostrophe. No, we don’t need an apostrophe, because it’s talking about more than one winner, not something that belongs to a winner.” Hans: “But there is only one winner in each game! So it’s not about more than one winner.” Mom: think fast! think fast! “Maybe it’s talking about a baseball team. One team wins, but there are lots of people on the team, so there are several winners.” Hans: “Oh!” (as he erases the apostrophe)
Sooo cute! What adorable exchanges. Reading that made me happy. :)
Too funny! I love that he called it an “apostle.”
Now you know why, four months into it, I made a rule that only the teacher could talk during spelling! ;)
By the way, my email was giving me trouble yesterday, but I will be getting back to you as soon as I figure out what is wrong with it.
Brandy, I think that sounds like a great rule! :) I was wondering, do you write out each word after your son spells it or only write out the words he spells incorrectly? Because I’m lazy, I’ve taken to only writing out the ones he gets wrong, but I can see that perhaps it might be good to make him self-check every single time so he thinks about it a bit more….but, 20 words already takes quite a bit of time. If I ban him from talking, though, it might take half the time. :)