The Things They Teach These Days...

Marshall and Shaylen have been learning throughout this year how to read. They are doing a tremendous job too. Shaylen tries to read just about everything she can see. One of the things Mrs. Lawson has done throughout the year is to teach them "word families." They learned what the vowels said and then made words. So "cat" is in the "at" family. That family would include words like "bat," "hat," etc. You get the picture. Each word they've learned has had families to go with it. So, when they sound out a word somewhere, they'll frequently say, "That was in the _______ family!"

Sunday morning the kids finished up breakfast and Marshall went in to the bathroom to wash up before we left for church. He was in for quite a while and when he came out he said, "I washed my face and hands with soap and went potty AND poo-poo! [pause] Hey! That's in the oo-oo family! [which we have NOT covered this year!]" Of course, Taigen and I could hardly contain our laughter and didn't help matters by saying, "And if you add 'sh' to it, that would be what?
"Shoo-Shoo!"
We actually came up with quite the family: Boo-Boo, Choo-Choo, Moo-Moo, Shoo-Shoo, Poo-Poo. Who would've "thunk" it!?

Another guffaw from today: Shaylen was complaining all morning about how her cheek was hurting. I told her that after school I would take a look at it. Come to find out, she's got a canker sore in there. Poor thing. I told her that I would put some medicine on it to numb it. Well, that made her worry for a bit because she thought her cheek would then turn yellow like my hand and arm did when I had my surgery (iodine). After much reassuring, she relented and let me put it on the sore. Marshall was so concerned for his sister and cried! I came down the stairs while they did their quiet time. A few minutes later Marshall came down the stairs in tears.

"What's the matter, Buddy?"
"I don't want you to make Shaylen's cheek dumb!"