Can You Use It in a Sentence, Please?

Having always been a champion speller*, I find kids who can’t spell fascinating.

Today we were discussing class jobs. I wrote them all on the board, and we talked about what each one entailed. Then I gave the kids index cards and told them to write down their top three job choices.

This is what I got (and remember, all the jobs were written on the board):

• sweper
• bord worsher, bored washer (Ha—what would that person do?)
• pencil sharpiner, pensel sharpiner, pencil sarper, pencel shapener, peneil shanpener (That last one sounds like a burning sensation you should see your doctor about.)
• libraren, liydeary (Oh dear, someone has dyslexia.)
• resekliler (Can you guess what this one is?)

*Cove Creek School champion, 7th grade—beat out my eighth-grade brother and cried because I didn’t want him to lose. Went to the district spelling bee, and got out on the word ‘abstain’. I didn’t know what ‘abstain’ meant (go ahead—make your funny jokes), and the way the lady pronounced it, it sounded like ‘obtain’ to me.