![]() ![]() Finally, their spelling skills are ideally transferable to their classroom work and other writing.” Spelling, reading, and hearing new words helps students’ acquire vocabulary, and the bee serves as a public speaking opportunity. Concepts such as ‘when two vowels go walking, the first one usually does the talking.’ They give students an opportunity to work toward an individual goal within a community of other students. “They reinforce students’ knowledge and use of phonics skills and word decoding skills. “Spelling bees are beneficial and important for students” for many reasons, said Halverson. Full disclosure: we heard they all reconvened as friends after the bee. The students stood in solidarity, though, cheering each other on with flair. With breakneck speed, the spellers were prompted through each word, some of which are reputed to be prevalent in daily use while some might require an enterprising mind to deduce their meaning from context. After the first round, four spellers were separated from the competition, and each subsequent round lost one, two, or three spellers each. Even when they misspelled a word, their efforts didn’t go unacknowledged as Halverson congratulated each speller before they left. Although the temperature in Eliot Chapel was noticeably cool that day, the spellers churned through words and benefitted from a feisty audience, with the sound of clapping regularly floating up to the ceiling. One thing was constant: these students are great spellers, able to embrace strange new words and wrestle their letters into place. ![]() Thankfully, Halverson provided definitions after a query, as per traditional spelling bee rules. It was quite exciting! Minute by minute, the students had to decide how they wanted to spell, some without an inkling of what their words meant. (Every bold word in the following paragraph was used in this year’s spelling bee!)įrom the beginning, letters swept through the space, with consonants and vowels whizzing through the Chapel. With that, the first speller stepped to the podium. “You will sound big in this space, but that’s ok,” she assured them. Halverson introduced the bee by telling students that “success in the beginning is all about what you’ve memorized and what you’ve done, while at the end, it’s about connecting what you’ve learned before to the unknown word presented.” She also told them to relax, take a deep breath, and be clear with pronunciation. Each student was given one word per round to spell, and the competition was fierce. Yash Shelar ’26 served as judge and captain of the bell, while Seventh Grade Global Perspectives Teacher Berta Simic and JK-12 English Department Chair and Upper School English Teacher Lynn Mittler volunteered as record keepers. Olivia Halverson, Middle School English Teacher, oversees the spelling bee club and organized the bee, offering a friendly and familiar face to the competitors as they each took the podium to spell. Louis Regional spelling bee, which is hosted this year at Saint Louis University on March 25. Once the winner of our school spelling bee is determined, the champion advances to the St. Students register for the spelling bee club in October and practice every other week from November through January until the spelling bee. There are no classroom spelling bees, instead our Middle Schoolers compete in this one divisional bee. The spelling bee at MICDS is open to all fifth- through eighth-graders. Twenty-one students representing all Middle School grades gathered in Eliot Chapel after school earlier this week to participate in the 2023 spelling bee. Messing Gallery Mission & Submission Guidelines.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |