… I suggested he put random letters on the bag or try to write words with the stickers. He wanted to write “N’s amazing rock collection” but settled for “rocks.” This simple activity spurred some great learning moments:

He sounded out the word and decided he needed the letters R O C. I asked what other letter made a “cah” sound and he remembered that K did. We talked about how English is a silly language because people a long time ago made it up by combining a lot of different rules and then they changed most of those rules, so here we are today using two letters that make the same sound to spell a simple word like Rock. He was okay with that. 

He knew he needed to add an S but couldn’t explain why, so I reminded him that adding an S makes things plural. I’d never taught him this before, but he learned it somewhere. … Read more…