2nd Graders and Spelling Bees

 

When Zaila Avant-garde, 14, won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on July 8, 2021, she became the first Black American to win in the competition’s history.

Three weeks to prepare 22 2nd graders for a schoolwide spelling bee.

450 words on the Scripps Official 2022 Word List.

Too many words, too little time. I will use my mind-reading skills and pick out the likeliest words to be on the test.

I scanned the 3 page list for curiosities. Vuvuzela. An onomatopoeia? (If anyone’s curious, I would have spelled that word correctly on a spelling bee- except for the fact that I thought the ‘t’ was an ‘n’. My 2nd graders are doomed…)

VUVUZELA! Whatever it was, I needed to find out RIGHT NOW!! I am not sure how the general population would fare on a spelling bee, but I, being not so well-read or news-worldly, would definitely have to do some serious memorizing.  

A vuvuzela, in case you need to know, is a long horn made popular at South African football matches in the 1990s. The sound from youtube videos of hundreds of fans blowing them during a game reminds me of many bees buzzing. 

I played the video for my class to familiarize them with the instrument, in hopes of solidifying their understanding of ‘vuvuzela’ and thus motivating them further to commit the spelling of the word to memory. (If this method succeeded, I would no doubt need to move in with my students to solidify their understanding of the remaining 449 words from the list.)

I played the video. My students made pensive curious expressions, from what I could gather from the exposed parts of their faces (we are still all masked.) Arian raised her hand. ‘It sounds like the sound a parasaurolophus makes when it’s mating.’ Another valuable youtube video I showed them in the past! 

My kids survived the spelling bee. There were tears shed. There were vows ‘to never be in another spelling bee again.’ The bee was held on ZOOM, and we had to stay masked. The sound was not great, and 2nd graders don’t know how to ask to have the word used in a sentence. Not that this would help- the sentences that other participants were treated to had strings of words in them that sounded like passages from 1950s textbooks.

Fast forward two weeks, and I am employing some spelling bee prep tricks for our upcoming weekly spelling test. ‘Who can spell ‘grapple’ like a spelling bee contestant?’ Now that we’ve suffered through the granddaddy of spelling tests, we are actually enjoying our little ten-word challenge. I think I will continue torturing my students with spelling bees in the future, as I’ve noticed my students are much more interested in reading since the experience. 

The event brought some unexpected surprises. I initially thought the non-participants would just want to do their own thing on the computer, and gave them a choice. The class unanimously chose to watch the competition as an audience. None cheered more enthusiastically than Dylan. Initially, I’d prearranged to have her taken out of the classroom for this important event, by her managing special education teacher, as her meltdowns, specifically during spelling tests, were loud and disruptive. It would not have been possible for the spelling bee contestants to be heard over Dylan’s outbursts. But when Ms. H. came to pick Dylan up at 9:00, it was clear that Dylan was committed to giving 100% to her new role of audience participant and cheerleader. Every time a participant spelled a word correctly, Dylan would jump out of her seat, throw her arms up in the air and shout out, ‘Congratulations! Good Job!!’ 

At one point the judge on zoom asked us to hold our applause until the end. I didn’t have the heart to tell Dylan. Truthfully, what is the point of a spelling bee with 7 and 8 years old if you can’t cheer loudly with your friends? It’s not like we were blowing vuvuzelas in anybody’s ears. 

Seriously, congratulations to all of our Terrific Pteranodon spelling bee contestants!

Post Haiku:

Spell ‘vuvuzela.’

Language of origin, please?

Hadrosauridese.