The Doll's Storybook

Stories about dolls who live in our world. Although these stories are suitable for children, they should check with their parents before reading and always be careful online. Readers are invited to donate to a charity supporting pediatric cancer treatment and research. Images shown are taken by the author or from a free image website with attribution and appreciation. The author has no connection with Götz Puppenmanufaktur, but gives them credit for the amazing dolls they produce.

Friday, August 30, 2019

The Spelling Test

One warm afternoon the dolls were doing their homework. Jolena found herself struggling.

"Can you help me, Mariah?" Jolena asked. "You're so good with words and writing."

Mariah closed her book. "I will if I can," she said. "What do you need help with?"

"Well," Jolena began, "I have to know these words for spelling."
Mariah looked at the list.

Here's the list.

bough
bought
brought
cough
dough
enough
rough
though
thought
through
tough

"They are all spelled almost the same," Mariah pointed out.

"Yes, but they don't sound the same," Jolena sighed. "It makes them hard to spell. I can read them when I see them, but when I need to write them, I can't remember. I could probably figure out what goes with the 'o-u-g-h' for each word during the test, but I want to be able to remember them when I need them for real!"

"I understand," Mariah said. "It's because the English language has changed since the words came about. We don't say them the same as dolls did hundreds of years ago, but the spelling often has stayed almost the same."

"Why do we have to keep the old spelling, then?" Jolena wanted to know.

"Well," Mariah began, "if we kept changing the spelling, then someday dolls couldn't read books and stories that were written today, like the book Mandy is reading, and that would be too bad."

Mariah looked at the list again. "Maybe it would help if you put them in groups and then used each one in a sentence," she suggested. "Group them the way they sound. Thought, brought and bought all rhyme, but cough ends differently. Without the 't' on the end of that word, the 'gh' sounds like 'f'. It sounds like the others except for that."

Jolena wrote each of those words down on her paper. She and Mariah checked the list to be sure that Jolena had spelled them correctly.

"Now for a sentence," Jolena said. "I thought I could do a triple flip," she said and then wrote it down next to the word 'thought'.
"Charlotte brought me a glass of water," she said and then wrote it out, too.

"I bought some flour to make some bread," she said as she wrote it out.
"Billy has a cough," she wrote.
"That's great," Mariah said. "Now let's see if there's another set we can put together.

"How about 'though' and 'dough'?" Jolena asked.
Mariah looked at the list. "Those go together, but I don't see any others that sound the same," she agreed.

Jolena wrote out, "Billy doesn't have a fever, though." Then she wrote out, "I need the flour to make bread dough."
"That's good," Mariah told her. "Do you see any other words that we can put together?" she asked.
"What about 'rough' and 'enough'?" Jolena asked.
"Yes," Mariah agreed, looking to see if she could find any others that sounded the same. "I see one more," she said.
Jolena looked at the list of spelling words. "I see it! 'Tough'!"
she exclaimed. "These words have that funny 'f' sound at the end again, even though the letter 'f' isn't in the word! It's like 'cough,' except that the rest of the word doesn't sound the same."

Then she wrote out each word in her notebook. "This spelling lesson is tough!" she wrote.

Then she though for a moment. "I will do well if I study enough," she wrote. After another moment she wrote, "The boats came back home because the sea was rough."
Mariah nodded her approval. "Those are good sentences," she said. "Now let's see if we can group any more."
"It's easier now that we have used some of the words," Jolena said.
Both dolls looked at the list. There were three words left, but none of them sounded like any of the others.

"Well," said Mariah, "let's just do each of them separately."
Jolena thought about 'bough'. "There was a bird's nest on a bough in the tree," she wrote. Then she looked up.

"Good!" Mariah said.
Jolena thought about 'thought'. "I thought this spelling test was hard," she wrote.
The two dolls looked at each other and smiled. "See?" Mariah said. "It isn't that difficult. We just needed to take it in small bites."

"It will be easier when I am through studying," Jolena wrote.
"There are a lot of words in English that are spelled funny," Jolena said. "I guess writing them, saying them and using them a lot makes it easier to remember them. I thought learning these words would be difficult, but you have made it easy. Thank you for helping me!"

"It's always easier to learn something," Mariah said, "if you can figure out how to use what you are learning. That's why you wrote the sentences."

"Like the word, 'flour'," Jolena agreed. It sounds like 'flower' but is spelled differently. I don't have any trouble remembering, because it's in my recipes when I bake, and sometimes when I cook other things."

Mandy looked up from her book. "Flower and flour. Those are homophones (HAW-muh-fohnz)," she said. "That's what we call two words you say the same but that have different spellings and different meanings, like 'bough' from your spelling list and 'bow' like when you take a bow after you are done performing."

"I do this," Jolena said, "when I'm done performing a dance." She got down to the floor and bent over to show them.

"When I am done performing a triple flip, though, I do this."
Jolena said as she threw her arms in the air. "Only I'm holding my ski poles," she added.

"That isn't a bow," Mariah said. "That's saying, 'Hooray! I made it!" They all agreed.
Jolena climbed back up into the big chair. "How do you know about...homophones?" she asked Mandy.

Mandy picked up a book she had on the box she was using to sit on. "One of our readers sent me this book," she said. "It tells all about it, and it's fun to read."

"Let's read it together," Mariah suggested.

The three dolls settled on the couch to read.

"I just thought of something," Jolena said. "I thought my spelling list was tough, but at least I don't have to spell 'homophone'!"

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend

The book How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? by Brian P. Cleary can be found in libraries, online here, on Amazon and elsewhere. Mandy wishes to thank reader and fellow knitter Cheryl B. Waters for her generous gift of the book.

Note to children: Dolls sometimes forget to take off their shoes when they get onto a bed, couch or chair, but children play outdoors in their shoes and should always take their shoes off before putting their feet on the furniture.

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Author's page on Amazon.

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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Friday, August 23, 2019

On the Wing

"That was a butterfly," Jolena said.

"I thought that creature was called a moth," Charlotte replied.

"It looked just like the butterflies on my shirt," Jolena pointed out, "only yellow and black, not pink and silver."

"Let's ask Mandy!" both girls exclaimed together.

They found Mandy knitting. Mariah was reading to her as she worked.

"Mandy," Charlotte began, "we have a question."
Mariah stopped reading, and Mandy took off her glasses and put her knitting down.

"We saw a creature flying around in the garden," Jolena said. "I thought it was called a butterfly, just like the ones on my shirt."
"I thought it was called a moth," Charlotte said.

Mariah was interested, too. "I know there are some flying insects that have big wings," she said.

"I've heard them called butterflies," Mariah continued, "but I've also heard them called moths. I thought there were just two names for the same thing. I thought a butterfly was just a pretty moth," she added.

"They are very close to the same thing," Mandy said. "That's because they are related. They are insects that belong to the order Lepidoptera (leh-pih-DOP-ter-ah), which means 'scaly wings,' but they are different from each other in some ways. You're right, Mariah. We think of butterflies as pretty, because most butterflies are more colorful than most moths, but not always."

"If I don't know anything about what you saw," Mandy continued, "I would have to guess that it was a moth, because there are many more kinds of moths in the world than butterflies." Mandy paused and thought. "On the other hand, if you saw it just now, and it was flying around, it was probably a butterfly," she said.

"You see, butterflies usually are awake in the daytime, like us," Mandy explained. "Moths usually come out at night, but there are some that like to be out in the daytime."
"It was definitely awake," Jolena said.
"We saw it flying around," Charlotte said, "so it must have been awake."
"Or flying in its sleep," Jolena pointed out. Then she giggled.
"Did it stop flying while you were watching it?" Mandy asked.
Charlotte and Jolena looked at each other and thought.

"Yes," they both cried at once.
"It landed on a flower in the garden," Jolena said.

"Yes," Charlotte agreed. "It crawled around on the flower and then stopped for a little bit."
"Then," Jolena added, "it went to another flower and did the same thing."
"It was probably drinking," Mandy explained. "Most butterflies and moths drink nectar (NEHK-ter), which is a sweet liquid found in flowers. They drink it the way hummingbirds do. Now tell me, when the creature stopped, what did it do with its wings?"

The two girls looked at each other and thought. They tried to remember what they saw. They would have closed their eyes to remember better if they could have, but their eyes don't close, so they had to pretend. They remembered something like this.

"When the wings stopped moving," Charlotte began, "the creature sort of held them like this." Charlotte put her hands up over her head and back as far as she could reach.

Jolena nodded.
"That sounds like a butterfly," Mandy said. "Most moths rest with their wings covering their sides."

"Some, though," she explained, hold their wings flat against whatever they are resting on."

"What did its antennae (an-TEH-nee) look like?" Mandy asked.
"What's that?" Mariah asked. (As a writer, Mariah is always interested in new words.)

"Antennae are something like ears," Mandy explained, "but they do more than just hear. They can smell and feel. There are two of them."
Mandy asked Mariah if she could use her pencil and notebook. Mariah agreed and handed them to her.

Mandy drew two pictures on it. She drew a line with a little ball on top. It looked like a line with a little ball on top. Then she drew another line and some little lines coming off of it. That one looked sort of like a skinny feather.

She showed the pictures to Jolena and Charlotte, while Mariah looked on.

"Did your creature's antennae look like this," she asked, pointing to first of the pictures, "or was it more like this?" She pointed then to the second picture.
Charlotte and Jolena both pointed to the first picture. They pointed to the one that looked like a line with a little ball on the end.

"Then it was a butterfly," Mandy said. "There are moths that are awake in the daytime and butterflies that are awake at night. There are moths that hold their wings more like butterflies when they rest and butterflies that hold their wings more like moths. There are moths with antennae that are more like those of butterflies and butterflies with antennae more like moths, but if your creature had all of these features, it had to be a butterfly."

"That's interesting," Charlotte said.
"There's one more way butterflies and moths are different," Mandy went on. "You see, both of them start life as caterpillars (KAT-uh-pill-ers)."

"But caterpillars" objected Jolena, "don't look anything like moths or butterflies! They look like worms with little legs!"

"That's true," Mandy agreed, "but caterpillars are baby moths or butterflies. They change shape when they grow up. They shed their skins several times as they grow. Then they go to sleep to change and grow wings."
"How do they do that?" Mariah asked.

"The caterpillar makes itself a little changing room," Mandy explained. "Here's another way moths are butterflies are different. The kind of changing room it makes depends on whether the caterpillar is a moth or a butterfly."
The dolls all looked at each other, trying to imagine a caterpillar in a changing room.

"A moth caterpillar will attach itself to a branch, twig or leaf in a safe spot," Mandy said. "It will spin a cocoon (cuh-COON) for itself."

"A cocoon is like a sleeping bag out of yarn from the moth's own body," Mandy continued. "In fact, the silk we sometimes use for clothes is made from the cocoon of a very special caterpillar."

"On the other hand," Mandy went on, "after a butterfly caterpillar attaches itself to a branch or twig in a safe spot, it sheds its skin for the last time, and its outside hardens to make something called a chrysalis (KRIS-ah-liss)."

Either way, the caterpillar goes to sleep for a long time. When it wakes up, it has wings and a skinny body. During this in-between stage, while it's sleeping and changing, it's called a pupa (PEW-pah), no matter whether it is a moth or a butterfly," Mandy said.

"I wonder what it's like," Charlotte said, "to wake up and find you have wings and a skinny body."
The dolls thought about that.
"In poetry and stories,"Mariah said, "a butterfly is often used to mean the beginning of a new life. Now I think I know why. I guess that's because it starts out as one thing and changes to another."
"Yes," Mandy agreed. "It's like how a ball of yarn can become a sweater."

"It's like how waffle batter can become waffles," Jolena suggested.

"Or," Charlotte added, "how a bunch of notes on a piece of paper can become music!"

"Or how words we write can become a story," Mariah suggested, "like this one."

"Will we change into anything?" Jolena wanted to know.
"No, Jolena," Mandy said. "We will always be dolls. Our purpose is to help children change and grow up to be adults who can look after themselves and their families. We teach them to be kind to others, and to know how special they are."

"That's good," Jolena said. "I don't want to change into something else. I like what we are and what we get to do."

"That means we're special, too."

Cast--

Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend

More information about butterflies and moths can be found here.

Photos from UnSplash.com are: First butterfly photo by Sean Stratton. Second butterfly (closeup) photo by Richard Lee. Moth with closed wings photo by Tim Goedhart. Caterpillar photo by Sara Codair. Chrysalis photo by Suzanne D. Williams.

Silk cocoon photo by Emily Peters through UIHere.

Mandy's T-shirt design adapted from an image found on UIHere.