spelling bee--B

Brandon's turn. he was competing against fellow 5th graders, and 6th graders. he was nervous. more so than Ethan, i believe.

note the furrowed brow... ;-}

i think he's not so sure about how it all ended up here. he got 3rd place. beat out all of the 5th graders. i think he was a little sad that he didn't get 1st again. he was so close. i know i was sad for him! i made sure to shower him with praise, however. he really DID do wonderfully!!! i asked him later, and he said he felt proud of himself. his tone wasn't so convincing, but i chose to believe him. ;-) ...........the thing that i was so irked about was how poorly the bee process was explained to me as a parent. i read that he needed to get a list from his teacher. which he did. but apparently, he should have gotten the next grade level's list too. and because i didn't know how they were doing it, he wasn't prepared when they moved on to that next list. i just threw those 5th grade words at Ethan on a whim. in part, as a way to pass the time. maybe i had a hunch of sorts...who knows. it worked out though, because we already had that list for B. but alas, Brandon was not so lucky. he was given the word "consonant". and he spelled it with an 'sen'. :( i don't know. maybe i'm the one with the problem and not those in charge of it at the school. maybe i was confused. i read that they could get a list of words for the challenge round. and they did that. though once the challenge round finally began, i didn't recognize the words that she was giving them..! maybe it said something about getting the next 100 words, but i didn't understand that it was essential they do that. ....i digress... in the end, i was and am immensely proud of my super-spellers!!!! :)

oh, we thought Ethan was moving on to the school-wide spell-off, but it turns out that that was miscommunicated, since only 4th graders and up can move on to the state competition. he got a candy bar for the studying that he had started to do, and then Brandon started studying the list. apparently, even though he was 3rd, he was still eligible to participate in it. that was on November 16th. i'll post about it another time...