Spelling Bee Girls: Winners Whether or Not They WIN!

Kelsi

     Nail-biting, hair-raising, thumb-sucking (just kidding!) times took over last week in our family.

     Kelsi and Brittany competed in the local homeschooling spelling bee this last week. 

     It was Brittany's first year to officially compete, although she joined in the fun last year as an unofficial competitor and won second place!  This was Kelsi's third year to compete in our local homeschooling spelling bee. 

     When the spelling list was released in November, I believe, Kelsi informed me that she didn't want to compete this year.  While I do provide the girls with some freedom and choices for extra-curricular activities, I decided that the spelling bee was something in which they were going to participate, whether they wanted to - or not.

     Now, that may seem a bit unkind.  Come on, Mom, if they don't want to face the crowds and mess up in front of everyone, why should I force them to?

     Here were the reasons that I provided for both girls: 

• God has given them strengths in language, writing, and spelling.  The Bee will enable them to develop these skills further, without a lot of pain.
• We have already figured out a technique that helps the girls study their words on their own, without having to ask another adult to help them out.
• The vocabulary they learn from this activity is INCREDIBLE!
• The spelling bee is a challenge, and it stretches them.  This is good.
• The spelling bee practice sessions and participating in the Bee would be used as their spelling and vocabulary curriculum for this school year. 
  
• Standing up in front of an audience, feeling nervous and excited, is great practice for job and scholarship interviews, participating in plays and dramas, and lots of other activities that will be in their future.

     As the winter continued, both girls began to become a bit more excited about the possibility of winning the local homeschool spelling bee and being able to advance to the county level to compete with all of the schools in our county.

Brittany

     Brittany seemed pretty nervous going into the competition.  She kept her composure, however, and appeared to be confident after the first few words spelled correctly.  Kelsi didn't seem nervous at all, just cautious.  She's been in front of people so often that she doesn't find it disturbing anymore.

     Well, what were the results?

     There were around 8 competitors; I didn't recognize all of them this year.  They all seemed ready for the competition!

Sorry for the blur on Brittany (far right); I couldn't figure out how to make two focal points on one photo...

    
     Four girls, all friends with each other, came in 1st through 4th place. 

     Kelsi took first place this year, with one of her closest friends coming in second place.  Brittany came in 4th place.  She was disappointed, since she performed better last year without much studying or effort!  Elmer and I are very pleased with her efforts, though.  She has nothing to be embarrassed about!

     Now, Kelsi will advance to our local county spelling bee, which will include spelling bee winners from each of the participating public and private schools in our county.  This does make Kelsi feel a bit more nervous than other events. 

     After all, she'd love to win a brand new laptop computer!

     During her first year of spelling bee competition, she was selected to participate in the county spelling bee, and she came in 2nd place.  We could hardly believe it!

     Last year, she was also able to participate in the county level, and she came in 8th place, I believe?  (I think that's right.  I'm sure I'll be corrected if I've made a mistake.)

      This year, she'll compete in the county spelling bee in mid-April.  We're excited to see her advance to the county level, and she'll be working on learning techniques for spelling Latin-based and Greek-based words, and other words in the weeks to come.

     Regardless of whether the local homeschool spelling bee competitors won, or not, they are all winners in my eye!  They all learned valuable tools in spelling and vocabulary; they all gained more experience in speaking and being in front of others in a stressful situation.  This isn't a bad thing!  This will help them in the long run.

     And no matter what happens, at least we know that they won't be spelling like this sign, below:

     Congratulations, Kelsi, Brittany, and all of the other children who put forth a lot of effort to learn a 500-word list of spelling words!

---