Hailey and the Spelling Bee

Hailey at the Spelling Bee

Last year, as a 3rd grader, Hailey qualified for the school spelling bee but threw such a fit about going up in front of the whole school with her classmates that we gave her a free pass and withdrew her name. I told her,  "Okay, I'll let you sit out this year but if you make it next year, you are doing it."

Well, fast forward to this year. If I'm her, I'm throwing the qualifying class spelling bee where the top 2 advance to the school spelling bee so I don't have to participate. But, she doesn't. She scores in the top 2 again and I get an email from her classroom teacher that her name will be passed on to the people running the all school spelling bee. 

I actually don't outright tell her that she qualified but instead I have her read Mrs. Matt's email (her teacher). She immediately starts worrying and says she's not going to do it. Oh no, I tell her, you had your free pass last year and this year you are going to do it. Then we drop it. I give her the words to study. She studies them sometimes. Not much. We were on vacation most of the study time and I was barely getting her to study anything on the flight even though she had hours so I wasn't sure how she was going to fare. 

The day came (which also happened to be Austen's birthday) and the whole family (including Papa) joined Hailey at her school to see her participate in the bee. We held our breath each round as she got a new word and spelled it out and then kids misspelled words and were eliminated. Finally, in the third round she got the word "gloaming." None of us had ever heard of this word or knew how it was spelled but now we do! Hailey spelled it - g-l-o-m-i-n-g so she got out in the 3rd round which was more than respectable. 

But, we were so proud of her for getting up there and trying it when we knew she was terrified that that's all that mattered to us. She also said she really liked the spelling bee and couldn't wait to do it again next year! See sometimes you have to push your kids a bit outside their comfort zones or they will never know if they like or dislike something if they don't try. Glad we made her do it! Congrats to our little speller!