How Do You Spell 'Suppon?

Today for language arts we read a story about a creature named Something Else who had no friends until he met another strange creature named Something. At first Something Else rejected Something, but then he realized he was doing the same thing that was done to him. Very touching indeed.

We are focusing on story beginnings, middles, and ends so after the story was finished, my students had to go and write what happened during each part of the story. Since they are only grade two, this is not always easy for them and I am trying to encourage them to write independently instead of telling them what to write.

This practice holds true for spelling as well. I prefer they try to spell it as best they can so that I can see there level of letter awareness and such and learn what they still need to be taught. Nonetheless, I still get many children asking me how to spell words, or translate words for them from Italian to English. Sometimes I know what they are talking about, and other times.......no clue.

Like today for example: one of my kids came up to me and asked me how to spell 'suppon. Having never heard that word before, I immediately assumed he was asking for an Italian word in English: the closest word I know to 'suppon being sapone, which means soap. So, I asked him if he meant soap. He said no, 'suppon. I thought maybe he didn't know what soap was, so I repeated myself and made washing actions. Again, he repeated the word. I guess he felt the need to elaborate due to my cluelessness because he then added "You know, like 'One 'suppon a time'"

Too funny. Now why didn't I make that connection???