Friday, October 5, 2012

Distinguishing Between "Migrate" and "Hibernate"

B knew most of his spelling words this week, but he kept messing up migrate and hibernate.  He'd sound them out, then struggle if it was r or er in the middle of the word.  On the way to school this morning, I handed him the iPad and told him to open Magnetic Alphabet. 

After having him spell migrate and because, I asked him to spell hibernate.  He added an e in migrate: migerate and couldn't remember if there was an e before the r or not in hibernate.  Teachable moment!

I told him to spell both migrate and hibernate on the same page.  Instant whine.  "Why didn't you tell me that when I spelled migrate?  Now I have to spell it again!"

My plan was to show him how mi-grate had two syllables, and hi-ber-nate had three syllables, which is why he'd need the e.  He complained and grumped, and even told me they had the same number of syllables after he'd told me migrate had two syllables and hibernate had three.  Then I had him take a snapshot with the iPad and spell each out load. 

Through clenched teeth, he spat out every letter in migrate: "...E.  A.  T."

I was going to lose it.

Why would he put eat?  That makes a long e!  I mean, really! 

When I complained to Casssie later, she suggested that maybe he didn't need so much logic.  Maybe he just needed to write each fifty times.  I think she's right--check out what I found in the iPad's photos later that day:


Also, while talking to Cassie, we determined where eat could have come from: a compound word of my and great.  I'm not giving him much credit, though.  If that was his error, he'd mispelled my.  I also decided that I needed to either migrate or hibernate after my morning debate.  If I have to do so with my offspring, though, I choose hibernate

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