We don't know about you, but we have spent hours working with our kids on homework, and sometimes, it makes us feel pretty stupid. Sure, we are a few years removed from subjects such as algebra and biology, so we're a little rusty, but little kids' stuff should be no problem, right? Wrong!
A mom from the United Kingdom got totally stumped by her child's homework and went to the internet for help. Laura Rathbone, 40, from Buckinghamshire, England, was trying to help her first grader, Lilly-Mo, and was positively stumped. We looked it over, and nope … we were no help either.
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This should have been pretty simple.
Rathbone shared a picture of Lilly-Mo's worksheet in the Facebook group Family Lowdown Tips & Ideas. The homework gave a group of words and wanted Lilly-Mo to choose the odd one out, but according to Rathbone, she and her daughter couldn't figure out the connection.
"So… my six-year-old daughter who's in year one got this homework question. It's confusing in my opinion, to say the least, especially considering the age it's aimed at… but I'd love to hear your answers!" she wrote.
The mom felt like it was way above her head and Lilly-Mo's. "I think it's something you'd find in a Puzzler magazine personally but let me know your thoughts."
The words seemed unrelated.
The worksheet listed five words: friend, egg, toothbrush, silver, and desk. Rathbone felt like they all looked odd together and trying to decide which one didn't belong totally stumped her.
She told Today that she didn't just ask strangers; she went to her friends in a group chat for help. "I also asked about this in my parents WhatsApp chat and no one had the same answer," Rathbone said. "It's a real brain teaser!"
People online were perplexed.
Not unlike Rathbone — or us — people in the Facebook group were equally confused. But a lot of them came up with possible answers. One person looked at the words and came up with this theory, "I would say toothbrush as it's the only one with 2 syllables?"
Sounds plausible, but not everyone was convinced. But wait … "silver" has two syllables too. Some people liked "friend" as the oddball.
"Friend because it's the only word that can not be phonetically sounded out. All others you can. Given its phonic homework that is what I would say it is checking," someone suggested.
"Friend because it's a person and not an object," another person wrote.
Some people had jokes.
A commenter took into consideration all kids but still had a thought. "Egg is the only item you can eat…" someone claimed. "Not saying little people wouldn't eat or try to eat the other objects, but they are not food."
One person offered an age-old suggestion: "Just say the dog ate it."
Not gonna lie, but that might have been what we would have done.
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Thankfully, Rathbone got an answer.
She updated her post and said the teacher told her "silver" was the answer because it is an adjective. Some people actually knew it from the beginning.
"Silver – as it's an adjective and the rest are nouns would be my guess although silver is a bad choice of color as it could actually be a noun if it was a physical object. Silly question," one person commented.
Rathbone told Today that even though the mystery was finally solved, it was a fun adventure.
"Everybody had different theories, and it was quite interesting!" Rathbone said. "I really enjoyed reading all of the comments."
Laura, thanks for sharing. It makes us feel so much better about that second grade math homework we struggled with last night.
