Friday, March 07, 2008

Dictation at Our House

Mariel and Triss each have their own Spelling Wisdom book for dictation. This morning as they did their lessons, I was struck with the multitasking aspects of administering a fourth grader's and a seventh grader's dictation assignments simultaneously, and the absurd juxtaposition that sometimes occurs:

Triss: Okay, I'm ready.

Me: "Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined."

:pause:

Mariel: Ready!

Me: "Wash on Monday.."

:pause:

Mariel: Wash on Monday, semicolon!

Me: "Iron on Tuesday.."

Triss: ...looked deeply cha...chagrined? I'm ready.

Me: "He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down on the slab..."

Mariel: Ready! It's "mend on Wednesday," right?

Me: "Mend on Wednesday..."

:pause:

Mariel: Okay! "Churn on Thursday, right?"

Me: "Churn on Thursday..."

Triss: "...threw it down on the slab..."

Me: "...turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words."

Mariel: I'm ready.

Me: Where were you?

Mariel: I know the next part. It's "clean on Friday."

Me: Okay, "clean on Friday."

Triss: Ready!

Me: "A few yeards off..." Wait a minute. (laughter) "A few yards off he stopped under a lamppost..."

:pause:

Mariel: "Bake on Saturday!"

Me: Bake on Saturday.

Mariel: How do you spell Saturday?

Triss: It's like satyr, only without a 'y'.

:pause:

Triss: "...under a lamppost..."

Me: "...and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him."

Mariel: Ready!

Me: "Rest on Sunday."

Mariel: Period.

(Whew!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

LOL! That's one reason I switched to doing my girls' dictations on different days of the week. I can't keep up anymore :-)