It all came down to “abstractum.”
When Charlee Bray heard the word, she was flooded with relief.
“It’s actually a really easy word,” said the 12-year-old, who was pretty sure her little brother in preschool could spell it correctly, too.
She pronounced the singular Latin noun, spelled it, said the word again and became the 2021 District 51 Middle School Spelling Bee champion.
“I was so excited I couldn’t express it for a moment,” said Bray, a Holy Family Catholic School sixth grader. “I thought I was just dreaming.
“My mom came right over, and we jumped for joy, practically.”
Once the initial celebration was complete, mother and daughter went home, got the other five members of their family in the car and went to Golden Corral for a celebratory lunch.
In those wonderful moments, Bray shed the nervousness that had filled her the morning of Jan. 30, as she and 87 other middle schoolers from across the Grand Valley gathered online for the annual spelling bee.
The 88 spellers were at their respective schools, keeping to cohorts and social distancing through the 50-word test during the written round of the competition.
There were 24 spellers who moved on to the oral rounds, which relied heavily on Google Meet. The pronouncer, Redlands Middle School Assistant Principal Scott Davis, was shown in one window and the spellers were shown in the others.
Given the online format for this spelling bee, the coaches at the participating schools had a lot more work, so “kudos to them,” said Redlands Middle School teacher Cari Diehl, who organized the event.
It went off smoothly even with the increased number of spellers, she said.
Most years there are 50-60 students in the spelling bee from across the district, but this year there were 55 participants from Holy Family alone, Diehl said.
There are no necessary qualifications to be in the spelling bee, and Holy Family usually has about 25–30 students participate, which made this year exceptional, said Penny Jansen, the school’s spelling bee coach and middle school language arts teacher.
The appeal could have been the extra credit and doughnuts that were offered to anyone who showed up, except that they do that every year, she said.
Or perhaps spelling became “the new sport this year” because so many club sports and other activities haven’t been as active due to the pandemic, Jansen said.
Whatever the case, “I was really thrilled to see the kids who were not normally your spellers put some effort into it,” said Jansen, who noted that in general she is seeing more academic effort this school year with less missing homework and more pages read.
Despite having to be online, “I feel this was one of the best spelling bees in five years,” Jansen said.
Now she and Bray are waiting to find out how the state spelling bee will be run in March, and Bray said she plans to study more for that competition than she did for the local spelling bee.
Her family’s schedule is busy with swimming, wrestling, homework and chores. Bray also has recycling duties at school each Friday. So, beginning the Monday before the spelling bee, Bray studied with her mom’s help an hour before bed each night.
“My mom will go down the list and find a word and say it out loud and I’ll say it and spell and say it again, just like a regular spelling bee,” said Bray, who had never participated in a spelling bee before, but had a general idea of how they worked from books she has read and from talking with other kids.
The most difficult word she encountered during the competition was “iniquity,” she said. Other than that, “most of them were fairly easy and I already knew how to spell them.”
“I remember going through each (oral) round and after I spelled the word right, I had a really big smile on my face,” Bray said. Then she would sit down and cheer on the other Holy Family spellers, until it was just her.
“I think she, in her mind, said she was a good speller and she wanted to win this,” Jansen said. “I think she was pretty determined.”
"middle" - Google News
February 06, 2021 at 02:15PM
https://ift.tt/3axVJOs
Holy Family student wins annual D51 Middle School Spelling Bee - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
"middle" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MY042F
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment