Jell

For interactive writing time, the teacher gives the kids an ending sound and then the kids raise their hands to tell her the words they thought of that end in that way. Then the teacher spells it for them as they write it on some big paper at the front of the class. Then I cut them out and tape them to corresponding shapes.

Yesterday was the -ell sound. Imagine the possibilities! (I had one in particular running through my head right after I ran into the bookshelf for the tenth time today.) I looked over the words they had written yesterday in their cute first-grader handwriting. Bell, tell, Nell, fell, smell, jell... What? Jell. That's right. Jell.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. I asked the teacher if she wanted me to tape "jell" to the shape of the bell with the other words even though jell wasn't a real word.

"But gel is a word."
"Right. But this is j-e-l-l."
"How do you spell it then?"
"G-e-l."
"But jelly is j-e-l-l-y and jell-O is spelled j-e-l-l-o-w."
"Jell-O is spelled J-e-l-l-o."
"Isn't it spelled like yellow?"
"No. And even though jelly and jell-O are with a "j", gel is with a "g" because it's short for gelatin."
"Oh, well... if you're sure then don't tape it up."
"Okay..."

And that was that. Jell? And Jellow? For heaven's sake! There's even a song for that one! Jell-O's had the same jingle for the last 50 years! J-E-L-L-O!