Language FUNdamentals Book 1

Starting on the first two blank lines, print the abbreviation for the word knock out.. On the next three lines, print the word rude fans yell when they don t like the referee scall.. Mar

by R.E Myers

illustrated by Bron Smith

Teaching & Learning Company

Cover design by Sara King

Illustration on page 56 by Ernie Hager Used with

permission

Copyright © 2005, Teaching & Learning Company

ISBN No 1-57310-450-7

Printing No 987654321

Teaching & Learning Company

1204 Buchanan St., P.O Box 10

Carthage, IL 62321-0010

The purchase of this book entitles teachers to make

copies for use in their individual classrooms only

This book, or any part of it, may not be reproduced

in any form for any other purposes without prior

written permission from the Teaching & Learning

Company It is strictly prohibited to reproduce any

part of this book for an entire school or school

dis-trict, or for commercial resale

Progressions 6

A Trip to Remember Sequencing 8

Moths Fly at Night Mostly Sequencing 10

Unscramble the Letters Following Directions 11

Unscramble More Letters Following Directions 13

Susan Capitals, Punctuation 14

Paddy Punctuation, Vocabulary Building 15

Sounds and Syllables Alliteration, Syllabication 16

Maria s Problem Homonyms 17

In Contrast Antonyms 18

Bankers Aren t So Dumb Similes 20

It s a Pleasedness to Do Business with You Suffixes 21

Nouns Name Nouns 23

Fitting Partners Proper Nouns 25

Dynamic Verbs Verbs 27

Motoring with Nervous Nellie Verbs: Gerunds 29

Phrases with Prepositions Prepositional Phrases, Nouns, Sentences 30

Agreeable and Disagreeable Verbs Agreement 32

The Word Game Rhyme, Synonyms 34

Ice and Fog Spelling 36

Mindy s Annual Checkup 38

Either Way 43

Occupational Names Word Play 44

Natural Riddles Riddles, Puns 46

Tons of Soil Spoonerisms 48

Shuffled Syntax Predicates, Subjects 50

Sentence Sense Sentences 52

More Sentence Sense Sentences 54

Impressions Vocabulary Building 56

Categories Categories 58

I m Thinking Vocabulary Building, Abstracting 59

Magic Squares Vocabulary Building, Word Usage 60

What Do They Have in Common? Abstracting 61

Brieflies Adverbs, Puns 62

Buzz, Swish and Slurp Onomatopoeia 64

Statements to Ponder Ambiguity 66

Ready by Five Proofreading 68

Tito s License Game Subjects, Predicates, Paragraphs 70

Practice Makes Perfect Proofreading, Self-Evaluation 73

Mixed-Up Maxims Maxims, Subjects, Predicates 74

The Sow s Plow Quatrain, Rhyme 76

Time Lines Titles 79

The Game of Naming Naming 82

sentence structure instruction in a palatable way, by adding humor and whimsy Students

are encouraged to use their own ideas and language as they learn through old-fashioned

language instruction and creative thinking

E Paul Torrance has offered some excellent advice to teachers who want to motivate their

students to learn In effect, he tells them to set the stage in order to get them ready to

think and to act To prepare your students for a meaningful learning experience, Torrance

advises you “heighten anticipation.” This state of the pedagogical process has also been

called the “warm-up.” The following expressions he uses to describe this process are highly

suggestive:

Create the desire to know Heighten anticipation and expectation

Get attention Arouse curiosity

Tickle the imagination Give purpose and motivation

As he points out, you need to have your students’ attention Without that, the “warming

up” will be ineffectual Capture the attention of your students You are probably an expert

in several ways (We don’t advise you to go at it in a high-handed fashion, however The

mood for any of these units would therefore be destroyed.)

After you have their attention, heighten anticipation with some introductory remarks

Tease students with an item from one of the activities For example, you might allude to

the way headline writers regularly use puns in the sports pages Ask students to react to

a headline such as “Oilers’ defense too slick for Jets in clutch” (as in the “Twisters”

activi-ty) Or read a pun in a newspaper Leading into a unit this way will get your students in the

mood for it

To arouse their curiosity and get them in the mood to think whimsically, present a verbal

statement such as: “The girl was heaply dirt by the insult.” Ask them what the statement

means This is the kind of “spoonerism” they will deal with in “Tons of Soil” (page 48) Your

students may do a mental double-take at such mixed up language, but it will “tickle the

imagination.”

You will probably have your own ideas about how to introduce the lessons after looking

them over You’ll want to modify and improve the lessons to make sure they suit your

students

Sincerely,

R.E Myers

Victor Borge proved that punctuation can be funny whenmade audible This book is an attempt to consider grammar,capitals and sentence fragments in a similarly humorous way.

Teaching basic language skills in a way that involves yourstudents thinking abilities as well as their funny bones willhelp them remember important facts

The intent of these activities is to cause students to ponder,evaluate, imagine, reconsider and inquire Critical and cre-ative thinking skills as well as the application of rules are alsorequired

Since an author of educational materials has no way ofknowing exactly who the targets of his or her ideas will be,the teacher should alter, delete or supplement any of theideas in this book in order to fit the needs of the students inthe class

Sequencing Activity 1

If you were asked to put these words in a logical order

Arrange each set of three words in a logical order

1 lunch, breakfast, dinner

5 breeze, tornado, gale

A Trip t o Remember

Sequencing Activity 2

We left our home in the Marina District of

San Francisco on Monday Our family Dad

36, Mom 32, me 11, Lisa 7 and Brad

5 had gotten up at 5:30 because Mom

wanted to get an early start on our trip to

Chicago That was the first mistake, but

there were lots more Maybe I should say

that going to Chicago was our first mistake

Somehow I don t really know why Dad

forgot to fill up the gas tank of our old Ford

station wagon, and we ran out of gas just

two miles after we d passed the San

Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge toll plaza on

the Oakland side He had to walk nine

blocks and then wait 20 minutes until a

service station opened up It was 7:30 when

we ran out of gas Remember we got up

real early! As luck would have it, after Dad

got the gas and began walking back to the

car, it started to rain hard That made him

almost as mad as when we were in a motel

in Omaha and the handle came off the hot

water faucet in the shower and he scalded

his hand That experience must have made

him decide we could make it all the way to

Chicago the next day We should have been

prepared for motel problems because the

night before, in Cheyenne, the desk clerk

said they didn t have any reservation for

our family There was a convention in

town, and there wasn t a room to be had inany motel or hotel We slept in the car.Uncomfortably, I might add

It was lucky we had a good motel room inReno after running out of gas in Oaklandbecause I think Mom would have made Dadturn around and go home if it had been abad one She didn t want to go to see theChicago Cubs play anyway We had someexcitement in Wyoming Before we got toLaramie, Brad spotted some wild burros in afield near the road He talked Dad into let-ting him out of the car to see them better,

The teacher asked the class to write a What I Did During Summer Vacation composition.Tawnee Barkas wrote the following narrative:

Our Trip to Chicago

but when one of the burros came right up

to him he dropped his peanut butter and

jelly sandwich and ran back to the car,

yelling like crazy I guess the burro was

interested in his sandwich Both of the little

kids were problems that day A few hours

before, we had to stop for gas at Rock

Springs and Lisa left her little purse with

two dimes and a comb in it in the restroom

Dad refused to go back for it when Lisa

dis-covered she had left it at the service

sta-tion She didn t stop crying until Brad

spot-ted the burros

Getting out of the car on the highway did

not seem to work out for us, I guess Before

we got to Salt Lake City and a place to sleep

as good as the motel in Reno we hoped,

Dad thought it would be nice to have a

pic-nic by the side of the road By chance, Brad

found a wristwatch with a broken band in

the dirt Mom insisted we take it to the

police at the nearest town, which took us 12

miles out of the way The police there

and was a cheap watch you could get atWal-Mart for $9.99 anyway Dad insistedthat they take it since we had wasted a lot

of time trying to do the right thing

When we finally got into Chicago on Fridayand located Wrigley Field, Dad found outthat the Cubs were in Boston on a five-dayroad trip When he told Mom, she turnedpurple Dad was a nice shade of red I don twant to write about the trip back It wasmuch worse

Q

Qu ue essttiio on nss

1 Make a list of the places Tawnee saidher family stopped on their trip Putthem in the order in which theyoccurred After you have completedyour list, check a map to see if you havethe places in the correct order

2 Though Tawnee wrote mostly about themembers of her family, you can get anidea of what she is like from reading heraccount of the trip How would youdescribe her personality? Draw a pic-ture of Tawnee on the trip, or tell howyou think she might have looked

Moths Fly at Night (Mostl

y)

Sequencing Activity 3

Put the sentences below in a logical order Write the numbers 1-14 next to the sentences inpencil to indicate their order You can erase numbers if you change your mind about wherethey go Write out these comments about moths and butterflies, in the order in which youthink the author meant them to be, on another sheet of paper:

Or a butterfly

Why is a jackrabbit a hare?

If so, the one with the wings flat when it is resting is the moth, and the one with thewings folded is the butterfly

I confess that I can t tell a moth from a butterfly

When does a butterfly stop flying around?

Oh well, it probably doesn t make any difference, except to another moth

Have you ever seen moths and butterflies flying around at the same time?

Have you ever seen them compete for space on the same plant?

At five minutes before sundown when the weather is good?

In fact, a hare and a rabbit look the same to me, too

At an hour before the time given in the newspaper for the sun s setting?

Nevertheless, the reference books state that moths fly at night mostly and flies don t

butter- But you have to see them at rest

Why isn t it a rabbit, for goodness sakes!

Have you ever seen moths and butterflies flying around at the same time?

Unscramble the Lett ers

Following Di rections Activity 4

Follow the clues below to fill in the blank lines Then guess the two unknown words

1 Starting on the first two blank lines, print the abbreviation for the word knock out

2 On the next four lines, print the color of a clear sky

3 Change the fourth letter to the letter between n and p

4 Change the next-to-the-last letter to the 19th letter of the alphabet

5 Cross out the last letter; you won t need it

6 Unscramble the letters to see what they spell

Hint: You find them in libraries and schools

1 Starting on the first two blank lines, print the abbreviation for the state south of NorthDakota

2 Print the word for the opposite of far on the next four lines

3 Put the sixth letter of the alphabet on the last line

4 Change the fifth letter to I

5 Unscramble the letters and you should have what everyone needs

Make up your own game like the two on page 11 Give five or six directions for filling in thelines When someone has followed your directions correctly, the letters above the lines shouldspell a familiar word.

Follow the clues below to fill in the blank lines Then guess the two unknown words

1 Starting on the first four blank lines, print the thing children love to do

2 On the next line, print the seventh letter of the alphabet

3 On the last line, print the first letter in the direction opposite of north

4 Change the fourth letter to the letter between d and f

5 Change the next-to-the-last letter to the same as the fourth letter

6 Unscramble the letters to see what they spell

Hint: One of the magic words taught to children

Unscramble More Lett ers

Following Di rections Activity 5

1 On the first two lines, print the abbreviation for the room in a hospital where badlyinjured people go

2 On the next three lines, print the word rude fans yell when they don t like the referee scall

3 On the last two lines, print the abbreviation for Old English

4 Change the third and fourth letters to the abbreviation of South America

5 Change the next-to-the-last letter to the 18th letter in the alphabet

6 Cross out the fifth letter; you won t need it

7 Reverse the first two letters

8 Unscramble the remaining six letters to see what they say

Hint: What every pencil needs

People are always giving or asking for directions Unfortunately, some people are not clearwhen they give directions and the person trying to follow them gets mixed up or lost Thisoften happens when directions are given for finding a specific location What are some of themistakes people make in giving directions to a town, street address or a place of business?

Capitals, Punctuation Activity 6

The following paragraph is not punctuated

There are no capitals, commas or periods

Write capital letters over those that need

to be capitalized and place commas and

periods where they are needed

susan has good handwriting she always

wears nice clothes in the latest style and

her hair is neat susan even gets all her

math right she has a twinkie for lunch

sometimes but she usually eats only

food that is good for you susan had the

leading part in our play last month

everyone hates susan

Why do you suppose everyone hates

Susan?

para-paddy was my pig or maybe he was my hog at any rate he had a curly tail and a blunt

snout and so we can assume he was a porker after he was weaned paddy became very

fond of me it must have been because I was the only one in the family who would feed

him he wanted to go everywhere with me he followed me into the house whenever he

could even following me into my bedroom and the bathroom I drew the line there you

wait there paddy id tell him a girl needs some privacy the most trouble I ever had with

paddy was when he got loose one day and dug up old mrs olivers garden what an awful

sight when she came home mrs oliver was as churned up as her garden I will admit there

were more furrows and bumps in the garden but not too many more we survived that but

mrs oliver was red in the face for a week and she would not speak to me for twenty two

days that was all right with me because she had a voice like a sick crow and a laugh that

frightened all her livestock they never did get used to her laugh paddy seemed to like it

though he was actually fond of mrs oliver too bad that feeling wasnt reciprocated

Circle the word that best describes the two characters in the story

Paddy was a affable b perky c amiable d debonair

Mrs Oliver was a imperious b irascible c irritating d tempestuous

Sounds and S yllables

Alliteration, Syllabication Activity 8

Think of two words equivalent to each two-word definition below The two words must havethe same initial sound as in Big Ben and lovely Louisa  They must also have the samenumber of syllables as the definition For example, if unclean canine is the definition, dirtydoggy could be an equivalent pair of words with the same number of syllables Dirty dogwould not work because dog has only one syllable and canine has two.

Maria’s P roblem

Homonyms Activity 9

Homonyms are words that sound alike but

are not usually spelled the same, and have

different meanings In the following story

choose the correct words from the 14 sets

of homonyms Cross out the incorrect

words in parentheses

Maria was knew, new at her job and,

more importantly, new, knew in town

She didn t know her way around and had a

grate, great deal of trouble finding good

stores in which to buy, by the articles she

needed She probably was more timid about

asking information of her fellow workers

then, than are most young women of 25

An indifferent response to her question

effected, affected Maria more than it

should have, and she usually didn t know

wether, whether, weather to pursue the

matter or not If Maria had only had a

friend whose council, counsel she could

seek occasionally, she would have been a

lot happier The fact that Maria now lived in the

nation s capitol, capital made her feelmore unsettled, too There were touristseverywhere strangers to the residents andstrangers to one another It wasn t like herhometown, a place in which, witch every-one knew, new one another s business

Maria wanted the name and location of agood stationery, stationary store thatwas her principle, principal need at themoment but she didn t know witch,which person in the office to ask without

In Contrast

Antonyms Activity 10

Antonyms are less useful to writers than synonyms, but they come in handy when there is aneed for contrasting ideas and elements

Cross out the word in each sentence below that doesn t belong Write the correct word aboveit

1 Oh, I don t want much just give me a huge piece, please, Marion said sweetly

2 She s a regular magpie I can t get her to say a word not a word, declared Juan

3 Henry was a careless and absent-minded boy; he would keep everything he owned

4 Because she was early, Trudy ran the length of the corridor, knocking into several people

on the way

5 I think boys who pluck their eyebrows look foolish, declared Tyrone

6 It fit so loosely that Gary was afraid to sit down for fear it would split

7 The mirror was so clean you could barely see your reflection in it

8 Andre eagerly agreed to go to the dance in spite of his intense dislike of such social affairsand of dancing in particular

9 I wish I had a good enemy like that, one who gives me treats, said little Justin

10 After he had banged his gavel on the table several times, Mr Nutter announced his tion to end the meeting and get down to business in spite of the noise.

inten-11 Jeff came right up to the small boy and politely told him, Shove off, you little creep!

12 If you want to get better, you ll have to lower your sights, advised the coach

Write the pairs of incorrect and correct words in the columns below Example: If you replacedbad with good in a sentence, write bad-good in the Adjectives column.

Bankers Aren’t So Dumb Similes

Activity 11

A ssiimmiillee is a figure of speech that uses like or as to make a comparison  Her face was as white

as a sheet He fought like a demon  Circle the five similes in the following paragraphs

Bankers just aren t the same anymore, declared Mr Sinkwich You can t tell a banker from

a college freshman Either one might be wearing Bermuda shorts or sneakers When I was aboy, a banker was dressed as conservatively as an undertaker at a millionaire s funeral None

of this casual dress back then

And they weren t that chummy, either at least to me they weren t Nowadays they smile atyou and act as if you were about to offer them two tickets to the Super Bowl Not that they llgive you that loan in 10 minutes in spite of what those ads tell you Crafty as a fox, they are

A lot of charm, but you may be just spinning your wheels, like my old truck when it s on theblocks not getting anywhere

Oh, I think you re exaggerating, as usual, countered Ms Phillips And you re forgetting thatbankers aren t all men I admit that some bankers are pretty casual, but they probably knowtheir business as well as the old-timers did Yes, when I applied for a loan at my bank, the loanofficer was as smooth as glass when she turned me down Grinned like the Cheshire Cat as shesaid No But she made me feel it was all for my own good

It’s a Pleasedness t

o Do Business with Y

ou

Suffixes Activity 12

We know how to make nouns out of verbs because we have heard and read the words ken and written The suffix er attached to a verb means one who The suffix ment

spo-means a result or a product of

We naturally say pleasure and not pleasedness, punishment and not punishance, fusion

and not fusiary or fusary and instigator and not instigatant because these are the ways we

hear people talk

Common suffixes that can turn verbs into nouns:

verb + suffix = noun

Turn the following verbs into nouns by adding suffixes to them You may need to delete

or add some letters

Nouns Name

Nouns Activity 13

A noun is a word that names persons, places and things

Roses, although thorny, please me terrifically

In this sentence the noun, Roses, identifies what gives the writer pleasure We need to namethe people, places, objects, institutions, emotions, ideas, etc., that we think of so we can com-municate a thought to others and to ourselves

Of the 23 words that follow, which name something?

sincerely automobile because

List the nnoouunnss below and tell what they name If Paris was one of the nouns, you would ignate it as the name of a geographical place, a city.

some-Add nouns to give meaning to the thoughts expressed below Using the contextual clues,write proper and common nouns on the lines so the paragraph makes sense.

Robert Fulton’s Steamboat on the Seine

After considerable _, _

agreed to try out the , and he set to the task

with Working from scale ,

constructed his _

with painstaking scientific Although he met

with _ on the first trial _ on

the , the second _

was successful but not quite successful enough for _

As he confided later, his _ lacked one important

It wasn t fast enough _

needed a more powerful _ for freight and passenger

Fitting Partners

Proper Nouns Activity 14

As proper nouns, the surnames of people are always capitalized They often indicate the pation of an ancestor, such as: Miller, Carter, Baker, Potter, Painter, Taylor However, we sel-dom encounter a person today with a name that exactly fits his or her occupation Maybethings would be easier if a Beeman kept bees or a Falconer trained falcons A good sign for ajewelry shop would be JEWELERS Diamond and Pearl for partners Asa Diamond andArthur Pearl What businesses would be logical ones for these partners?

occu-1 Betty Rose and James Flowers

2 Tony Crabb and Richard Salmon

3 Bruce Hammer, Joseph Wood and Ray Stone

4 Sheila Read and Emma Book

5 Andrew Storms and Timothy Raines

6 Gina Beyer and Ralph Sellers

7 Clairice Rich and Jon Sage

8 Robert Smoke and Judy Mirrors

9 Mary Waite and Aurelia Service

10 William Neal, Barbara Crouch and Ho Bang

11 E.J Groom and William Dryer

12 Grace Yank and Bruce Pullman

13 David Tom and Raymond Tom

14 Donald Ho and Kimberley Ho

Dynamic V erbs

Verbs Activity 15

Nouns name, pronouns take the place of nouns and verbs indicate action or state of being

Generally speaking, we can t have pronouns and nouns without verbs when we try to

com-municate a thought about someone or something Think of verbs as indicating life This

quality of verbs is especially apparent in newspaper reports Here are some verbs from a

local newspaper:

feel douse grapple skulk flow believe are gather unite battle paint detect steal possess fear can have recognize grab seem know am was drive

Write a brief definition of each dynamic verb below without referring to a dictionary.

Check your verbs definitions in a dictionary

Dynamic verbs give punch to a sentence They liven up stories, reports, essays and

poet-ry Use each of the dynamic verbs in a sentence to see what it does

Motoring with “Ner vous Nellie”

Verbs: Gerun ds Activity 16

Some verbs sound and act like verbs, but others act like nouns When verbs function likenouns we call them ggeerruunnddss Gerunds are verbs ending in -ing A gerund functions in all of theways a noun does Check out the underlined gerunds below

Running a business was easy for him Running is the subject of the sentence.

Omar taught dancing in a flamboyant way Dancing is the object of the verb taught.

Seeing is believing Seeing is the subject of the sentence and believing is the predicate noun.

Underline the gerunds in this paragraph

Nervous Nellie never took her eyes off the road for a second Driving was a kind of

tor-ture for her because she was a pessimist by nator-ture She always expected the worst to

hap-pen and sometimes it did Those thoughts resulted in the jittery and erratic handling of

her father s huge SUV Consequently, steering the vehicle in heavy traffic brought out the

worst fears in Nellie, as well as in her passengers and all the motorists in the area When

she finally arrived at her destination, Nellie heard no cheering from her passengers only

sighs of relief

Phrases with P repositions

Prepositional Ph rases, Nouns, Sente nces

Use a preposition followed by a noun and modifiers to give a clearer idea of what you have inmind For example, if you are speaking of a lion, tell whether the lion is in the zoo, in the jun-gle or at large on the streets These words that give a clearer picture of the subject are calledp

prreeppoossiittiioonnaall pphhrraasseess

The most common prepositions are: in, into, of, at, to, with, over, during, on, by, from,through, toward, until, above, off, under, for and about There are over 50 more

Add a prepositional phrase to each noun below, then write the phrase in a sentence Example:paradise for who? Add the prepositional phrase, for rock collectors The outcropping in thatremote area turned out to be a paradise for rock collectors 

Agreeable and Disag

Agreement Activity 18

Generally, people naturally make verbs agree with

the subjects, which are predominantly nouns and

pronouns The article a in the following sentences

indicates a single animal or species of animal It

requires a verb that also indicates only one A

par-rot is a noisy bird

Choose the correct verb in each sentence Cross out

the incorrect verb

1 Paris  wwaass // wweerree  a dazzling city that

spring

2 She  aarree // iiss  the best person to approach

Mrs Harris

3 You girls  iiss // aarree  not properly dressed for P.E., said the teacher

4 Framed pictures  wweerree // wwaass  considered preferable

5 Basketball players in that early era  wwaassnn’tt // wweerreenn’tt  terribly tall

6 They  hhaass // hhaave  been teammates for over five years

7  WWaass // WWeerree  that Mr Cameron s dog running loose? asked Barry

8 There  wwaass // wweerree  a hundred of them in the woods, chirping away

9 Storms that winter  wwaass // wweerree  relatively rare

10 You  hhaass // hhaave  always been my hero, mumbled the little boy

11 It  wweerree // wwaass  one of the proudest moments of his life

12 That was one task we  wwaass // wweerree  happy to perform

13 The criteria  iiss // aarree  not very difficult.

14 The media  wwaass // wweerree  certainly not unbiased in that election

There are mistakes in all but two of the following sentences Cross out the wrong verbs andwrite the correct ones above them

15 He come yesterday because Pap ask him to, said Ben

16 Green slugs is apt to lose weight on hot days

17 Damone clamped on his sunglasses because he were afraid of snow blindness

18 Practically everyone love a parade

19 Norton leave for Georgetown in the morning

20 Many parents are nervous wrecks on the weekends

21 Do a kiwi have anything in common with a hawk? asked the teacher

22 Elderly men are disagreeable in muddy puddles

23 My golf balls doesn t fly they stagger, confessed Zach

24 Home s where the dirty socks is

Some people speak in a dialect and use constructions such as He come yesterday becausePap ask him to Should we consider them ignorant because they speak that way?

The Word Game

Rhyme, Syno nyms Activity 19

A think-link is a pair of one-syllable words defined by a given phrase To form a think-link,think of two rhyming words that are synonyms for the phrases below Example: pleasedfather could be a glad dad  Each word in your think-link should be one syllable Use a dic-tionary or thesaurus if you get stuck

Ice and Fog

Spelling, Homony ms Activity 20

Cross out the incorrect words in the following story, leaving the correctly spelled words

Grinding and pushing the ice, the ship slowly made its way north in the Arctic, Artic

ocean The captain, whose, who s gray beard was encrusted with ice particles, called

over to his first mate on the deck

Say, Harry, would you run down to the proffessor s, professor s cabin and ask him to

come up and help us cite, sight, site that station? This is Febuary, February, and the

visibility will only get worse today That fog s awful thick

Right, Skipper, the mate replied Those ice floes and fissures can really decieve,

deceive you, can t they? I didn t think it would effect, affect me so much this trip, but

I can t see as well in these seize, sees, seas as I did last trip I got a little momento of this

trip already I smashed my head on that stanchion in this blasted fog and have a goose

egg on my noggin

Yup, I noticed that bump, said the captain This is bad Don t know when we ll get a

change in the whether, weather, if ever

Homonyms words that sound alike but have different meanings often give us problems inspelling Words such as here and hear, for instance, can be confused when we write Whichare the homonyms in the parentheses above? Write them below.

Mindy’s Annual Checkup Spelling

Activity 21

Circle the misspelled words in these two paragraphs

Mindy sat very still in the high-backed chair She was very uncomfortable Their wasn t

another person in the doctor s reception room, but she felt self-conscience Mindy

did-n t have evedid-n a did-nickle idid-n her purse, adid-nd she was afraid that the receptiodid-nist would ask

her for some money She had forgotten to ask her mother for money before leaving the

house and it s feeling of comfort and well-being Now she was in an atmosphere of

uncertainty and fear

Why did Mindy let these visits to the doctor effect her so much, she wondered There

hadn t been anything wrong with her before, and there had been no occurance of pain

in the previous examination The doctor was really quite pleasant; during one visit he

was even a little humerous Everything considered, Dr Rivera was a nice man; and

Mindy even knew his neice, who was a popular girl at

school But still, this visit could have a surprize or two

Fortunately, it would all be over in less than an hour

There are nine spelling mistakes in the two paragraphs Did

you catch them all? If not, carefully read the two

para-graphs again

Write the correct spelling for each of the misspelled words on the lines below Then checkwith a dictionary to see if you are correct.