S-C-R-A-B-B-L-E spells Sex Ed.

Words with Friends has become the new obsession in our family. And when I say obsession, I mean that with numerous smart phones and IPads, it has taken the place of real conversation amongst the extended family. If we want to say anything to each other, we better hope our letters can be combined to convey what we would have expressed with our voices had we not forgotten how to use them.

It’s not such a bad thing, though. When my kids are fighting over a game that provides spelling practice and promotes vocabulary enhancement, I count that as a plus!  Of course, with new technology comes a whole new set of challenges. Unlike traditional Scrabble, Words with Friends has a built in feature which tells you whether or not the word you are trying to play is, in fact, an actual word. This feature, while convenient, makes the kids quite lazy in terms of learning new words. The kids no longer have to look up words in the dictionary, instead, they just plug in any combination of letters, hoping it will go through. So the challenge comes in making sure the kids learn the meanings of the words they’re playing… OR…in making sure they don’t, as in this such case when Audrie was playing a game against her great-grandmother…

Audrie: “Oh, wow! I didn’t know that was a word!”

Me: “What’s the word?”

Audrie: “ G – O – N – A – D – S”

The rest of us burst out laughing.

Audrie: “What? What does it mean?”

Jonathan: “We’ll tell you later.”

xo

nessa dee