My son brought home an activity sheet for homework the other day. They're studying the letter "T" in his class right now, and this particular sheet required him to cut out pictures, choose which ones begin with "T" and glue them on a big turkey.
He had no problem with toothbrush or truck or towel. He easily discarded doll and cat. But then he held up one picture toward me and said, "Mommy, what is this?"
I nearly choked on my own laughter as I said, "Son, that's a typewriter."
What granny is sitting around in a windowless office in an academic press somewhere churning out activity sheets for today's 5 year olds? A typewriter? Really? I'm not sure my son has ever laid eyes on a typewriter, much less the kind of old manual contraption depicted in this picture. It's 2010, people. Pick it up.
After he had finished gluing on all the "T" words, though, he still had one empty tail feather on the turkey where another "T" picture should go. I asked him to look back over the ones he had set aside and try again to find the missing piece.
"Doll. No, that's D," he said. "Cat. That's C."
Then he picked up the final picture and said, "Phone. That's F."
With a slight shake of my head, I informed him that the whole word is actually "telephone."
But, really, who uses the full word "telephone" anymore? It's at least less archaic than "typewriter" but still not necessarily reflective of a modern child's experience.
I say forget the old standbys. The "T" pictures should be things like Taylor Swift, Toy Story and Twitter. They'd have that whole pesky alphabet thing down in no time like that.
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