It was a moment that would make any grandmother’s heart ache. I walked in to see my six-year-old granddaughter standing defiantly with her hands on her hips, and her father becoming increasingly red in the face while pages of spelling words fell to the floor.

“I won’t write any more words! This is boring!!” yelled my precious granddaughter with tears in her eyes.

Before her well-meaning father could open his mouth to establish his authority, I quickly suggested that he go watch sports and let me help Abby with her spelling.

You should have seen the look on my granddaughter’s face when I retrieved a canister of whipped cream from the refrigerator. The tears quickly melted away to be replaced by a mischievous gleam. (Grandma is FUN!) We covered an area on the kitchen table with newspapers and filled a cookie tray with whipped cream. Abby happily began to practice her spelling words in the whipped cream, licking her fingers after each correctly spelled word. When we realized we were eating more than we were spelling (not good for my New Year’s resolution), we switched to Daddy’s shaving cream – equally as educational without the extra calories.

Make it Fun!

The moral is, when helping children with homework, it helps to make it fun. Rote memorization can be tedious and mind-numbing, but playing games can make learning a pleasure.

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