Spelling List

Julia comes home from school with a new list of Spelling Words every week, and my favorite part of her spelling units are the worksheets in which she must attempt to define her spelling words and use them in a sentence.  This week's definitions were especially amusing.

These three definitions were my favorite.

#1 Runway

Definition: "It's like a big long stage that people walk down."
Sentence: "I am walking down a runway!"

Of course.  Of COURSE the kid who puts on fashion shows and strikes modelling poses all over the house thinks of a Runway Walk when defining the word.  Never mind the whole plane thing, which was the original object to use a runway.  It's all about haute couture!


#2 Sixteen

Definition: "When you are a teenager and your allowed to drive.  It is also a number."
Sentence: "I will be able to drive when I am sixteen."

Well that just hits the nail on the head, doesn't it?  I'm pretty sure that if you looked up the word "sixteen" in Webster's Dictionary, the official definition would be exactly that: "When you are a teenager and your allowed to drive."  I like Julia's last minute, crammed in addition of "It is also a number," written UNDERNEATH the given lines.  Oh, yeah.  Sixteen is also a number.  But most importantly, it's when you are a teenager and allowed to drive.  That's REALLY the best way to define the word.


#3 Burp

Definition: "When you make a noise and sometimes it smells."

Hmm.  I feel like Julia needs some extra constraints on this definition, because as shown above it could *also* describe a fart.  "When you make a noise from your mouth and sometimes it smells," perhaps?  Forget about what a burp really IS, the whole gaseous air being expelled from the mouth bit.  What really matters is that it makes a sound and sometimes it smells.



On a similar topic, Madeleine proved today how totally with the program she is, as always, as we discussed a different word's definition.

ME: (holding out a piece of mail we had received) Madeleine, can you go put this envelope on Auntie Shannon's bed, because this mail is for her.
MADELEINE: Okay!  Sure!  (examining the bright designs on the envelope, which undoubtedly contained a letter begging for money from some sort of children's charity) Wait.  Why does SHE get a letter with so many FUN things on it?
ME: Well, it's just a letter asking for money.
MADELEINE: But Mama.  What's INSIDE it?
ME: A letter from some charity asking for her to donate money, I think.
MADELEINE: Oh.  (Starting down the stairs towards Auntie Shannon's bedroom.) Wait.  Mama.  Why DONATE?
ME: Because they're looking for people to donate money.
MADELEINE: (cracking up) Mama!  Donate MONEY?!?  It should be donate KIDS!
ME: It should?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  But Mama.  Why ISN'T it donate kids?
ME: Uh, because people don't really donate kids.
MADELEINE: They don't??  Why NOT??  Wait.  Mama?  What does "donate" mean?
ME: "Donate" means to give something that you have to someone else.
MADELEINE: But I thought people donate kids.
ME: Uh, not really.  Maybe you're thinking of donating a kidney.
MADELEINE: What's a kidney?
ME: Um, it's a part of your body, and humans have two of them, so sometimes people will donate one kidney to someone who doesn't have any working kidneys.
MADELEINE: But Mama.  HOW??
ME: Well, because...you can live with only one kidney, and if someone has no kidneys that work, they can get a kidney donation.
MADELEINE: But Mama.  WHAT?  How?
ME: Uh, what do you mean?
MADELEINE: How do the doctors even get your kidneys off?

Okay.  We still don't understand that a kidney is an internal organ.  Madeleine is apparently imagining it like a protruding body part, as if the doctors snap off an ear and donate it to another patient. 

I probably should have just recycled the letter on Shannon's behalf and saved us all the extra trouble and effort.

Not that I can blame Madeleine for not understanding what a kidney is.  She's only five.  It's not like she's a teenager and allowed to drive, and also a number yet, right?