It’s become sort of a tradition with McKenna and I. At some point during the day when neither of us is losing our minds with the loudness of the boys, we work on the daily Wordle. As a friend recently said—it’s just enough. It’s not an endless time suck like TikTok or Instagram. It’s not a toxic tragedy like Facebook. All of which I enjoy. It’s just…enough.

Wordle 278 3/6*
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We recently worked our way up to Quordling. Some days are better than others. Today was not a good day for us.

Daily Quordle #59
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🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
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⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
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🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜

We each have our own strategies. McKenna likes to throw caution to the wind and see what sticks. She chooses any 5 letter word she can think of regardless of spelling patterns or letter frequency. I mean…she’s six so I would expect nothing less. I like to start with a rotation of words I have found to be the most helpful. We have since blended our styles. We usually start with one of my trusted words and then she takes over from there suggesting ideas she thinks might work. I let her stretch out the words and type them. This is a lesson in patience all its own. We talk them through before committing to the enter button.

Does it use the letters we already know?
Did someone check to see if we placed the letters according the yellow and green code?
Is it an actual word?  
Did we use it before?  
Does it use letters we know don’t work?

This has proven to be successful for us while Wordling. Quordling has taken a bit more of my phonics knowledge. But I would say about 80% of the time we get it right.

Back before McKenna joined me on my daily word puzzles, I would start them in the morning while still in bed. It was the way I woke my brain for the day. This is super nerd territory. When I didn’t get it in 3 attempts, I would put the phone down and ponder my choices in the shower.

shark
sharp
shart 
chart

And then while driving. I would get so engrossed in my round robin of rhymes and word families that I would miss entire chapters of my audio book.

charp
chars
charg
charm

These words, real or imaginary, would run through my mind like a Taylor Swift ear worm. When it finally came to me after attempting every variation of similar word, I would race to my phone to try it out. Was this it? The winner winner chicken dinner—in the words of my Wordling 6 year old?

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