sarah, superstar speller

Sarah came home from school a few weeks ago and announced that she wanted to be in the first grade spelling bee, and I must admit, I was not thrilled with the idea. I thought she would forget about it, and we wouldn't have to do it. I was wrong. Every day she came home from school pronouncing that the spelling bee was inching closer. David decreed that I needed to practice the list of 315 words with her every single day. With daily piano practice, homework, and daily reading, I kept putting it off. Fortunately, the day before the spelling bee we had a snow day, so I went through the list with her...once. She knew most of the words right off, but there were a few we had to practice a couple of times. Finally, the evening of the spelling bee arrived, and we headed over to the school. The twenty-five or so kids who were brave enough to participate lined up, and the spelling began. They flew through one round, and not a single child spelled incorrectly. That was when I started to get nervous. These kids were much better spellers than I had imagined. As the rounds continued, more and more kids were spelling incorrectly. The super spellers were dwindling, but our little Sarah was spelling away like a champion. In the end, she placed second after missing the word across (apparently, the cursed word has two s's and not just one). Her friend from her classroom reading group beat her out to become the winner. The third place speller was also from her classroom reading group. The poor little thing was devastated as she really wanted to win. She declared that she was no longer going to be friends with the little boy who won, would never participate in another spelling bee, and was generally quite broken hearted clear until the next morning. She wondered how she could possibly sleep as she was going to be crying all night long. The actual crying lasted only a few minutes. The next morning she was still very sad about the whole thing, and I was a bit nervous about how the day was going to go. When she got off the bus, however, she was back to her old self and had determined not only that she was going to be friends with the winner again but that she was going to participate in the second grade spelling bee next year in order to beat him. I am determined that next year we might study the words more than once. I am also certain that she gets her spelling skills from me and her competitive edge from her father.