You say potato, I say potahto

Last week we read a book called "The Pot."  It was one of our predecodables, which means the book consists of sight words we've learned and rebus pictures.  The point of these books is that the children do not have to "decode" words yet because there aren't any unknown words to sound out.

Even with the picture support sometimes these books can create slight challenges.  For example, my class needed to figure out from the picture that the lumpy objects going into the pot were potatoes.  Then on the very next page round objects with little leaves were put in the pot - tomatoes.  My guess is that whoever wrote that book has never worked with Kindergarteners before.  Most of the kids in my class confuse potatoes and tomatoes all the time!  They'll say - totatoes or pomatoes - referring to either one.

Yesterday we read a story about the wind and the powerful things it can do.  I asked the students to write in their journals about the wind.  One student wrote, "The wid can mac trmdo."  Translation: "The wind can make tormadoes."  That was a new one for me!