Worth Its Salt (How Cam became a speller)

Our second grader had been having a really hard time learning his spelling words this year. He didn't want to practice them, and even when he did write them, they just weren't sticking with him.

At parent/teacher conference time, his teacher suggested letting him write them with his finger in shaving cream. Uhmmmm, shaving cream is expensive and not reusable. He then suggested flour. All I could see was a huge mess in my living room. We decided to try salt.

I have a dark metal cookie sheet (the kind with the lip around the edges). In salt about 1/3 of an inch deep, Cam wrote his spelling words. He'd write a word, and then slide the pan side to side to clear it. When he was done, we poured the salt into a Ziploc bag, so it could be used again the next night.

By Thursday night he knew his words, and came home Friday with a perfect spelling test. His second test, last week, was a 14 out of 15. YAY, Cam!

The funniest thing is last week he decided to just write them on paper with a pencil for practice. Maybe the salt method was the confidence booster he needed. All I know is it worked!