Would You Like Tea or Coffee?

One of the funniest results of our recent vacation to the UK is Joy's attraction to the various accents people have. We stayed in Scotland the longest, and she was drawn to our breakfast server's way of saying, "Would you like some tea or coffee?" Every morning, the same question. By the third day, Joy was asking us all day long, "Would you like some tea or coffee?" with the server's accent. It was hilarious! (Slightly embarrassing when she did it in public, but funny anyway.)


Joy had a small notebook with her on vacation, and she began to "take orders" from us and write them down. Here was an early version; it says, "coffee, tea." Later, we started ordering foods and she would write them down. I fell in love with sticky toffee pudding, a traditional English dessert. Here's Joy's rendition of that: 

We've done lots of writing at home, including this easel upon which we write notes to one another several times per day. This particular day's notes were mostly about Joy's dad's birthday!

I wanted to extend Joy's writing of orders, so when we returned home from our trip and settled back into a routine this week, I asked her to write down her lunch order so the cook could make it up for her. She has thoughtfully considered and written her order with zeal each day. She thinks it's hilarious that I take it for "the cook" to make her lunch.

Today's lunch order was "Peanut Butter and Jelly, milk." The secret to keeping it fun for Joy is that I don't correct her "errors." At all. Over the past few days I've noticed that she's spelling milk correctly, except she's putting an e instead of an i. So today when she ordered, I said, "By the way, milk has only one vowel in it: an i!"  She spelled it with an e again anyway, but I'll try again tomorrow. Eventually, she'll see it written correctly enough or hear me, and she'll fix her spelling to the standard spelling.

That's another important point: When I do give or ask her to give the "correct" spelling, I don't say, "You're spelling it wrong," or "This is the right spelling." I say, "Here's the standard spelling, the one that authors use so everyone can read it." Her current "spelling words" are I love you.  That's what she writes the most, so I'm giving her the standard spellings for those words. We practice at "sit-down" school time, using white boards, shaving cream, paint, or writing in the sand. We also practice whenever she's writing I love you. I simply say, "Are you using the standard spellings or your own?" Or I ask, "Who is your audience? Do you think they'll be able to read them without the standard spellings?" This leaves the power in her hands, and the knowledge in her control. If she wants "everybody" to be able to read it, she'll use the standard spellings.