Spelling is P-H-U-N

With four kids in school, you can imagine the amount of homework we have. Luckily two of them are pretty self sufficient, only requiring me to proof read papers before they get turned in. Thankfully neither of them ask for my help on math because they know better.

With Emma, it's a different story. Sure she's smart. She could totally do it on her own. Yet she chooses to whine, kick, scream and fight the fact for thirty minutes about what she could have accomplished in five. So it's up to me to make homework "fun". Oh yay.

We're managed to come up with some pretty clever ways to review her spelling words. We used to stand on our heads but my balance isn't what it used to be. She would write her words in rainbow colors, type them out on the computer, spell them on the DoodlePad. She's always thinking of something different to do. And I'm always obliging because, hey, she's doing it without tears. Much unlike my mother whose idea of helping me with spelling out a word was D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y. You'd be amazed at how many words were spelled that way!

So one day she decided we would PictoChat the spelling words. And she was a little disappointed in the fact that I couldn't very well send her the word she was going to spell because then she would know the answer. So we PictoChatted across the living room where she could hear me loud and clear. Oh, in case you don't know...PictoChat is a fun little feature on the handheld Nintendo DS games that allow you to "text" your friends. The girls also use it for playing hide and go seek, it really is quite fun.

I personally do not own a DS, so I had to borrow Kathryn's.

And here is why I really have begun to dread spelling practice...

"Rubbed" was on the test but thank goodness "butt cheeks" was not.

But poop, she can do. And it's spelled the same forwards and backwards.

Oh vey.

And I'm really wondering why I have to endure this torture anyway. I mean isn't the next generation just gonna use spell check for everything?