Homonyms... ugh!

I can handle synonyms - different words that mean close to the same thing: fine & good; penny & cent; haze & mist; small & little.
I can handle antonyms - words that are opposites: hot & cold; dark & light; fast & slow; sharp & dull; new & old.
Those things don't throw me off and they are actually pretty easy to teach to my kids. I don't have to have a degree in English or know the origin of our language to explain those types of things to my brilliant children.
I do have a really hard time with homonyms - words that sound the same, may be spelled the same or spelled different, but mean something different: ate & eight; hair & hare; weak & week; cell & sell; sale & sail; buy & by; to & too & two. It's hard for me to work with these kinds of words. It's especially hard when the words don't follow the rules so it doesn't make sense: break & brake. The first word should have a long e sound not a long a sound. Oh bother.

In a lesson for Ben the other day they had a poem that a woman wrote with homonyms, so it sounds fine but she used the wrong words. I had to sit with Ben and go through the poem and try to get him to understand why they used the wrong words and what the correct words should be. That's something really hard for a kid to do when he doesn't know all the words. Really, what are they expecting? I thought I'd share the poem with you - it has a ton of words I didn't even know about. Shows you the educational background I have to teach these kids. Good thing they are smart and will make it despite my weaknesses.


Safely Home
by Elizabeth T. Corbett

A little buoy said, "Mother, deer,
May I go out too play?
The son is bright, the heir is clear,
Owe, mother, don't say neigh!"

"Go fourth, my sun," the mother said.
The ant said, "Take ewer slay,
Your gneiss knew sled, awl painted read,
Butt dew knot lose your weigh."

"Ah, know," he cried, and sought the street
With hart sew full of glee —
The whether changed — and snow and sleet,
And reign, fell steadily.

Threw snowdrifts grate, threw watery pool,
He flue with mite and mane —
Said he, "Though I wood walk by rule,
I am not rite, 'tis plane.

"I'd like to meat sum kindly sole,
For hear gnu dangers weight,
And yonder stairs a treacherous whole —
Two sloe has been my gate.

"A peace of bred, a nice hot stake,
I'd chews if I were home,
This crewel fete my hart will brake,
Eye love knot thus to roam.

"I'm week and pail, I've mist my rode,"
But here a carte came past,
He and his sled were safely toad
Back two his home at last.