The Bee

Last week Henry participated in his last elementary school Spelling Bee.  He did quite well this year; there were 24 kids participating and he made the top 3.  I think he was disappointed not to win but he did much better than last year, where he was eliminated in the 2nd round.

It was kind of funny, actually.  He had never been in a Spelling Bee before.  He was chosen to represent his class in third grade but the Spelling Bee was the same day as his RAI treatment at Huntsman Cancer Hospital so he had to miss it.  I think he still resents me for that, but whatever.

Anyway, last year I asked and asked him when he wanted to study.  He kept putting it off. Finally, the night before the Spelling Bee, he dug out the word list and asked me to help him.  And it was horrible.  The words were much harder than he anticipated and he didn't have much experience spelling aloud so he missed alot of them.  I don't know what he thought would happen - I guess he expected the correct spelling of all the words would just seep into his brain overnight or something - but I know it was a bit of a shock to him.  So I wasn't too surprised when he was eliminated quite early.

This year he took it much more seriously.  He has practiced spelling aloud all year.  Once he got the official word that he was in this years Spelling Bee, we practiced spelling every single night.  And he did really well.  I lost count of how many rounds he made it through.  He ended up being eliminated for the word banal.  Not the most difficult word to spell but not a word used too often in conversation.  Anyway, he spelled in incorrectly, narrowly missing the final two. 

It's been interesting watching Henry this year in school.  He's always done just enough to get by in school.  Oh, he makes good grades and is one of the top students in his class but he doesn't put too much effort into it.  Until this year.  His teacher has somehow found a way to motivate Henry into putting extra effort into everything.  It's been so fun to watch. 

Just the other day, I was telling him that if he chose not to go on the 4th and 5th grade ski trip to Beaver Mountain that he still had to go to school that day.  His reaction, "That's OK.  Maybe we'll just do math all day."

That's my boy!