Last weekend, the NewBrook Elementary Spelling Bee team headed up to Northfield, VT for the State Spelling Bee. After winning the District and Regional they had made it to state again (they have gone for about the last 7 years). This time the team's goal was to WIN state!
I worked at the Regional Spelling Bee because our school hosted it and I was instantly hooked. You would think Spelling Bee's would be boring but they are the exact opposite!!
I drove up with Joyce, a teacher at my school who is also the Spelling Bee coach. She and I were both very excited and nervous for our kids.
There are 12 rounds in a spelling bee - each student spells one word in each round. There are 5 teams and four seats for each team (so 20 spellers). There are also usually 1-2 alternates for each team.
Our school was row 3 and we were in fourth place up until the 8th round. It is not that we were spelling our words wrong - its just that every school seemed to be getting every word correct, it was a close competition. Going into the 12th round we were in third place. We were all hoping for second place. In the very last row of kids (so the last 5 spelling words of the whole Bee) the team that was in first place misspelled their bonus word (there are 20 regular words and then 5 bonus words-one speller gets one per round and they rotate) so we tied for second. THEN, Jessie, the last speller for our team got here bonus word correct - arbitrate - and we pulled in to WIN by only 2 points!!! It was crazy how close all the teams were the whole time and then at the very last second we wonnnnnnn!
The only 2 words our team misspelled the whole Bee were 2 bonus words: daffodil and bazaar (our speller spelled the other bazaar, bizarre).
We came home with individual medals for each kid and a BIG state champs trophy/plaque that is now prominently sitting in the office at school.
I am so glad I went along, it was fun AND we won!!
See the newspaper article: http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_16688031?source=rss
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