Friday, August 28, 2015

A Teepee Made out of Rhubarb?

      Here is another misspelled sign the five teachers in the car discovered.  By this point of the trip we were tired and giggling.  The one man in the car, my husband, kept assuring us that all the signs were indeed spelled correctly because he just wanted to get home.  But the other four of us were being diligent and we spotted another sign, made a U-turn, and snapped a quick picture.  Did you find the mistake?
     They spelled "peaches" correctly, but rhubarb has an "h" in it.  To teach my students a word like this one I have them pronounce the "h" in an accented way sort of like "ra-HOO-barb".     We would all smile and giggle a little,  then they would know it was time to be quiet again.  And they would know it was time to make sure that the "h" did indeed get included in "rhubarb".
      And, although I am usually decent speller, I don't do as well at gardening.  Once some friends of mine told me that they were making teepees out of "rhubarb" in their garden.  I was quite perplexed.  Not knowing a lot about rhubarb, I asked them if rhubarb grew that tall and strong.  Then they gave me a rather perplexed look and explained that they were making teepees out of rebar to support their tomato plants.   Spelling A, Gardening C.