Kindergarten Spelling Words: Fill & Download for Free

Years ago my brother shocked the neighbor lady with an assignment he had for his kindergarten class, and we still laugh about it today.Mr. and Mrs. Dell lived three houses down and were strict, religious parents of five girls; the youngest was my best friend. All their kids went to a Catholic school, while my brother and I were public school kids.Although good friends, my parents were much more liberal than the Dells (who would not even allow their daughters to play with Barbie dolls due to their breasts).Mrs. Dell was visiting one day when we got home from school, and my brother was so excited to show our mom his new spelling words, he barged right into their afternoon coffee talk.Just then, the phone rang.“Mrs. Dell,” my mom asked, “would you practice Andy’s new spelling words with him while I answer the phone?””Sure,” she said, “I’d love to.”My brother proudly handed her the flash cards. His young, hip teacher allowed her students to choose their own words to learn each week, so these were not from the typical kindergarten spelling book.It was Andy’s teacher on the phone, and she had called to give my mom a “heads up” concerning the homework.“Andy wanted one of his words to be ‘tush’,” she explained, “but I wasn’t sure how to spell that, so I had him pick a different word. We are supposed to let the kids choose any word…”Suddenly, my mom heard a scream coming from the living room.Religious Mrs. Dell, who did not approve of public school education, was holding a flash card with the word, “Penis” written on it.

Last year when my son was in kindergarten, he wrote something in his journal about the uniform the hockey players wore during a particular game. His teacher would go through all the journal entries and cross out incorrectly spelled words and rewrite the correct spelling above. When the journals were sent home at the end of the year, I noticed that my son's teacher had tried to correct my son's spelling of the word "wore" (I can't remember if he spelled it correctly or not). She crossed out his word and below it she wrote "whore."Edit: I found his journal! Also, changed "above it" to "below it."

When I was eight years old, all the third grade teachers placed their students in “spelling groups,” where we would study the spellings of words.There were three groups: Easy, Moderate, and Challenging. I was placed in the Easy group with other children, learning the meanings and how to spell words like “however,” or “raspberry.”This struck me as ludicrous, since we had learned to spell the same words in kindergarten. But the teacher said that I wasn’t smart enough to go to the Moderate or the Challenging groups. And the teacher knows best, right?As a result, I spent the rest of the year in the Easy group, convinced by my teacher that I couldn’t go any further and it was best for me to stay where I was.The next year, I tried out for the school spelling bee. I saw my teacher briefly glance up at me as I signed up. She just shook her head.Nobody imagined that I would win that year.Or that I would win the year after that.And the year after that.And the year after that.And that’s when I realized my teacher was wrong.