no more bedhead

Today was a crazy day as far as the kids were concerned. Three kids needed to be at three events in three different parts of the county - at the same time.

Keke had a Math Team competition, and we were able to drop her off after arranging for a ride home with one of her friends. She competed in word problems, and she did all right.

Stewie had a regional Pinewood Derby event. As the overall winner of the Pack Derby, he got to compete at the regionals. He also did well. They only showed the results for the top three finishers in each class, and his name wasn't displayed, but his time was only .01 seconds off the third place finisher, so I figure he was right up there, too.

Beenie had his second Regional Spelling Bee competition. The winner of this competition goes to Washington DC, for the national competition. Ellen took Beenie to this round. The bee started off as last years did, with a number of people being knocked out, and the competition was quickly down to ten spellers. After that, the eliminations slowed, and several rounds passed before the winner was determined.

The words that was given to spell were:

predicate (practice word)
hydraulic
impetuous
(10 spellers left)
epiphany
patel
angstrom
(5 spellers left)
eureka
(4 spellers left)
bureaucracy
tachometer
(3 spellers left)
bezoar

Unfortunately, Beenie spelled the last word beezoar, and was eliminated. But, he did come in third in the region, and that is something to be very, very proud of! The kid who won was the kid who has won the regional bee in three out of the four years he's been involved, so the competition was tough.

Way to go Beenie, and Stewie, and Keke!!

It's the last year for Beenie to compete in the spelling bee.  Last year he followed up 2 years worth of second place by coming in first and moving on to the regional spelling bee. In a way that created less pressure as he's already been there. In a way it created more pressure - the pressure to repeat.

So, we were a little on edge last night as we sat down to watch the Middle School Spelling Bee.  26 entrants from grades 5-8 sat on stage, under the lights, and had to spell in front of an audience of parents and siblings. In each of the first five rounds, only a handful of kids got eliminated each time.

In the sixth round, all that changed, instantly.  The round started with five kids standing, and the first three each spelled their word incorrectly.  Then it was Beenie's turn.  He got "monstrosity" and spelled it correctly.  One kid followed, and he missed his word.  That left Beenie to spell one final "championship" word to win the whole thing.

The announcer said "herringbone", and Beenie got a sly little smile on his face. I could tell as he started h-e-r that he knew he had it, and he was just trying to slow himself down so as not to make a silly mistake.  r-r-i-n-g-b-o-n-e, and bam - he's the champion for the second year in a row!!!

I swore I was not going to get all worked up this year.  Since he did this last year, I was good with however he did.  I was wrong. When the kids started missing in round 6, my heart was pounding.  When I hit the stage, I wrapped him in a big bear hug (much to his chagrin, I'm sure).  So much for the cool, collected, dad.

Again, we're on to the regional bee, where the words are exponentially harder. We'll see what happens.

The (correctly spelled) words from this bee:

Tonight was the Regional Spelling Bee.  This bee covered the four counties in our neck of the woods, and the participants were the winners of the school spelling bees from the area.  As I mentioned earlier, Beenie was one of those participants.

Sixty-nine spellers started the tournament, and Beenie was number 45, so we had to wait a while for him to spell.  In the first round, he spelled:

• metagnomy

which was pretty funny, as none of us had ever heard of that word before.  He did a fantastic job of asking for pronunciation, origin of word, sentence use, etc., and actually used those clues to determine how to spell the word.  I was impressed.

At the end of the first round, 48 spellers had been eliminated, so they started round two with 21 spellers.

Beenie's word was:

• liquefacient

another word I had never heard of.  Again, he used his questions wisely and figured out the ending correctly.  However, he didn't quite get the beginning of the word, substituting an 'i' for the 'e'.  In both the school bee and tonight, I was writing down the words as he was asked them, and I wrote down this one exactly the way he spelled it, so I would have been out, too.  It was a tricky one - do you go with "liquid" or "liquefy"?  Oh, well.

He said before the bee that his goals were to have fun, and to get through round one.  He succeeded on both counts!

So, after the second round, there were seven spellers left.  The first one spelled her word correctly, then all six others missed.  When she went to spell her "championship" word, she missed, too, so all seven spellers were brought back and the round done again.

Again, six spellers missed, and one got it correct.  When he tried the championship word, he missed.
In the next round, six spellers missed, and one got it correct.  Then he missed the championship word.
Once again, six spellers missed their words, and one got it correct.  This time, he spelled the championship word correctly and was named the winner.  The other six were declared co-runners up.

So, I say that Beenie made it to the penultimate round of the tournament, because everyone else left standing at the end of the round in which he was eliminated were named winners.

It was a great experience for Beenie, and for us.  It was a lot of fun to see it in action, and the difference in difficulty of words between the school level and regional level was noticeable.

Edit 3/7: Beenie just pointed out that I spelled a word incorrectly in this blog post.  Good start for next year!  (I fixed it.)

After coming in second two years in a row (link), Beenie finally won the middle school spelling bee!!!!  I'm so excited and happy for him - especially because this means that he gets to compete in the Regional Spelling Bee, the winner of which gets to go to Washington, DC, for the big Scripps Spelling Bee finals!!!

However, that doesn't mean that I didn't have heart failure along the way.  Here's what happened:

The words he spelled:

• calibration
• examine
• consonant
• denominator
• scruple
• oblige
• patience
• palatable

At this point, it was down to a final group of three.  The other two spellers missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):

• enfranchise

Now, by the rules of the spelling bee, he had to spell one more "championship" word to win.  His word was:

•  circuitous

and, he missed it. So, what that means is that all the spellers from the previous round come back, and we do it again.  The two others missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):

•  omniscient

Then, for the championship word:

• analgesia

And, he missed it again. So, we did it one more time. The other two missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):

• vengeance

Then for the championship word:

• photosynthesis

And, he got it!!!  I was an absolute nervous wreck during the championship word rounds.  I'm sure I was more nervous than he was - or at least than he appeared to be.

So, he got a big honkin' trophy, and he's on his way to the regionals in a month!

A while back all the kids at the middle school were given a paper and pencil spelling test. The top thirty spellers in each grade level (5-8) were invited to participate in Middle School Grade Level Spelling Bee during school on Tuesday. Beenie was one of those top thirty. When he was invited to participate he got the study guide and everything, but I never saw him do anything other than glance at it once or twice. So the day of the bee arrived and Beenie went off to school to a heartfelt "good luck".

When he came home I asked him how his day was. He said, very casually, "We had the spelling bee today." I said, "How was it?", to which he replied "It was good. [beat] [beat] I won." Yep, he came in first place in the 5th Grade Spelling Bee!

That meant that last night the top eight spellers from each grade level were to compete against each other in the Middle School Spelling Bee. Beenie was very excited (and this time he was showing it)! I thought the bee would last a long time as there were 32 kids from grades 5-8, and they would have to go through them all for each round (like the spelling bee on TV). I was surprised that the first round eliminated 17 kids. By round three it was down to 5. Beenie was one of those five.

One by one kids got tripped up until it was down to two. Beenie was still one of those two. It went back and forth until Beenie got tripped up. That meant:

Beenie placed second place over all in the Middle School Spelling Bee!!! And, that's as a 5th grader!

The kid who won is in 8th grade. Beenie did an amazing job! In the later rounds, he nailed these words:

• filibuster
• ominous
• democracy
• caribou
• pumpernickel

The one that tripped him up: imperative.

So they send one kid on to the regional spelling bee, and the winner of that goes on to compete in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. Everyone was so amazed and proud of Beenie for getting so close as a fifth grader. He's got three more years to compete - if he wants to. (And his excitement and enthusiasm leads me to believe that he will.)

Congratulations, Beenie!!