Spelling Bee

I already posted this on facebook, so you'll have to forgive me if you've already read this, but I think it's worth sharing again--plus it's got more background!

Emily participated in the first grade spelling bee yesterday.  The first graders have been practicing for weeks now and holding their own spelling bee's in their class rooms.  The top three kids from all four 1st grade classes, got to participate in the overall first grade spelling bee.  Mily was so excited she got off the bus ran straight into the house and announced that she was one of the three chosen to represent her class!

We worked with her that evening and night, giving her some random words to spell.  It was so fun to listen to her repeat the word, spell it and repeat it again.   By the morning she was ready to go.

During her spelling bee she was so cute, the way she would stand, the way she would say her letters (hahaha where did that come from?) the way she was all official and would ask the teacher "could I hear the word in a sentence please?"--it was too cute!

Here are some of the words she had I can't remember all her words:

dishes

of  (really?)

store

brown

don't

Although to be fair some of the other kids had harder words like highest, morning and once.  Mily can spell these, I'm just pointing out that she had easy words.  So I guess it's also a bit of chance...depending on the word you get.  And I should also point out that these are the words she got correct.  She got all of her words right up until it came time to find out who would be first place and who would be second place.  Then they BOTH kept getting them wrong..again and again and again!  It was too funny.   I think their nerves finally got the both of them and they weren't thinking through their word.  The other girl asked for her word in a sentence and the teacher said, "Does---Does this make you nervous?"  Everyone stared giggling even the two girls, I think it started to break the tension, even though they both spelled it wrong again. On the last word Mily said she heard her friend spell it wrong and then all the sudden her legs started shaking!  She started spelling the word but then went blank...it was hilarious.  She repeated the word "don't" and then slowly started spelling,  "D -- O -- N -- (long pause) That contraction dot -- T,  don't?"  They counted it and she WON the spelling bee.  The teacher doing the spelling bee asked Mily if she could remember the name for the "contraction dot," Mily still shook her head no, so the teacher said, an apostrophe.   "Oh, duh"...you could tell Mily was shocked that she didn't remember.  Mily's teacher laughed and said, "I have taught them about apostrophes, I promise!"  Yeah Mily had the insight to be able to describe it as a contraction mark---I'm pretty sure she's been taught about apostrophes...it was just the nerves getting to her! Heeheehee! 

Her teacher gave her a package of licorice as a prize--she was so very excited!  What a fun memory to be able to say that she won a spelling bee (her mom certainly can't say that!!!)