My Spelling Bee Story

The National Spelling Bee

2006-06-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

The National Spelling Bee has concluded, and Katharine Close was the winner. It was extremely suspenseful, and I am coming back next year to compete. I have already started studying! Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Seattle, Washington to compete in the National rhythmic gymnastics meet!

Washington D.C.

2006-05-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

I am currently in D.C.! I went to the Smithsonian yesterday and saw the original American Flag! It was very cool. I also went to see the White House today (just the front and back), I toured the Capitol Building with my pen pal (Carolyn, are you reading this?) and I met a lot of spellers and got their autographs. The bee starts tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leaving!

2006-05-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

I am leaving for Washington, D.C. in two days! Woo-hoo! I hope I spell well. I am going to have a fantasmigoric time. When I am finished spelling, I will go to Seattle and compete in a national rhythmic gymnastics meet! Wheeee! I finished re-reading all the spelling rules from Carolyn's Corner.

Gooooogle

2006-05-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

I created my very own Google specialized home on Friday night! It is very cool. It has the weather, all my favorite websites, Sudoku puzzles, the time and date, and a things to do list. I like it. I am going to Washington, D.C. on Saturday for the national spelling bee! Wish me luck! Right now I am studying by drilling on the Consolidated Word List, which is a list of all the words that have ever been used in the spelling bee. I am also doing an etymology workbook. It's very hard to prepare!

Akeelah and the Bee

2006-05-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee last week! It was fantastic. There were some factual errors though, such as that Akeelah would not have had eight months to prepare for the National Spelling Bee. It was still a really good movie though. I advise all the readers of my blog to watch this movie. It gave me some good study ideas.

Woo-hoo!

2006-04-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

I made it to Junior Olympics in rhythmic gymnastics! Yesyesyes! I got third place out of all of the age groups put together! I got first place in my age group! It was fun! Yay! Now I'm going to Junior Olympics! And I'm studying spelling on the way back home because I live in Tigard, Oregon and I am in Arlington, Washington.

Random

2006-04-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

Today my swim coach announced to my whole swim team that I had won my spelling bee. I was absolutely mortified! (There's a good word for spelling.) I am going to compete in a regional rhythmic gymnastics meet the day after the day after tomorrow. The weekend after that I am going to perform in a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty. I have a really busy schedule. On top of that I have figured out how to fit in four hours a day of spelling!

Coincidence

2006-04-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

I went to Starbucks on Tuesday so my mom could have a meeting with another mom. My mom and I were standing in line and we noticed they had some stickers with spelling words on them. And, apparently Starbucks is promoting some new movie, Akeelah and the Bee, opening April 28. So we got our food, and the other mom came with her kid, and the kid and I sat somewhere else, and we notice there were coasters and flashcards and cup holders with different words on them, and they were all labeled "winning word 1997 national bee" and stuff. We were all going, "Oh, that's cool, a movie about spelling!" and "Oh, that looks cool!" And of course the other kid and I were flashcarding all the words, and I was spelling them. Then we moved to another table that had more flashcards, and the other kid noticed that my new chair said (it had a canvas sleeve over it) "Reserved for Local Spelling Bee Champion! (or anyone who wants to practice their spelling.)" And I went, "THAT'S ME!" And everyone in the store looked, and I was a celebrity all over again, and the store manager came over to talk to me. It was really neat.

Cool stuff!

2006-04-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

I got my low red belt in Tae Kwon Do today! It's really hard. I was also on TV last night! It was showing the spelling bee that I won. I really hope that I win the national bee. It would be really cool if I did. Well that's all, because I have to go to bed now.

Ribbon routine!

2006-03-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday when I was practicing rhythmic gymnastics I changed the music that goes with my ribbon routine! It's very cool. It's celtic. For those of you who don't know what rhythmic gymnastics is, it's basically gymnastics without all the flips and stuff like that, and it uses apparatus. The apparatus is rope (which is a jumprope), hoop (which is a hula hoop), ball (which is a not-so-bouncy ball about the size of a head), clubs, and ribbon (which is a stick with a long piece of fabric attached). For those of you who do know what rhythmic gymnastics is, I added some rhythmic steps, took out a B element and added a C, took out a D element and added a C, and made my coach happy.

Not much

2006-03-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I watched the movie Zathura. It was really scary! But the ending was happily ever after, so that was good. I got my picture in the Portland Tribune for winning my regional spelling bee! It was a really geeky picture though. I was cross-eyed and biting my lip. It was still pretty cool having my name in the paper though. Have any other people who are reading my blog won a spelling bee ever?

My spelling is doing well!

2006-03-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

Today I worked on the Poe Words list and only spelled a few words wrong! I've still got a lot of words to go in my Paideia though. I wish I would get some comments! I played my geography game today and got a perfect score! Yippee! :-) A few of my favorite words in the Paideia are words like,churrigueresque,agathokakological,geusioleptic,gotterdammerung, trinitrotoluene, arachnophagous, (ugh) aggiornamento, achondroplasia, neurohypophysis, stylopharyngeus, Aryepiglottic, and lots more! Some words mean really gruesome things. Well I hope some people have comments about my posts. Bye!

Other subjects that I study

2006-03-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

I work on geography a lot too, and there is a game I play where you can choose whether you want to work on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, or Africa. Then the game will give you the outline of any country in the continent you picked. You have to pick up the country with your mouse and place it on the spot in the continent that it goes into. If you get it wrong, it will flash red where the country is supposed to go and then you have to place it there and the game will give you another country. You can learn how to play it and lots of other geography games by going to this website. http://sheppardsoftware.com/

Preparing for the National Bee

2006-03-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

Right now I am preparing for the national spelling bee by working on one list of words at a time and redoing the words that I miss. The Paideia is divided into sections that each have a different subject and each section is divided into a beginning list, an intermediate list, and an advanced list. Today I worked on the Chemistry list and only spelled eight words wrong out of more than a hundred! Way cool!

How I prepared for the Regional Bee

2006-03-22T12:50:00.000-08:00

I prepared for the Regional Spelling Bee by using my Paideia, which is a book full of all the words that are going to be used in the spelling bees throughout the year, and spelling each word in it. I used the Audio Paideia mostly and just typed the words as they were said. My mom helped me with all the words that I missed and just went over them with me until I understood them. If I misspelled it three times I had to look it up and find out why it was spelled that way, usually by finding the derivation.

2006-03-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

I decided to get into the spelling bee because I am good at spelling and my mom decided to be the teacher of my spelling class because she knew I liked spelling.

The Village spelling bee was kind of informal and really low key, like it wasn't all suspenseful and "no, please let her win" kind of thing. There were four kids in the spelling bee and it didn't go very long. Before the spelling bee we all bought valentine bears and decorated them with tutus and war paint. I was really frightened when I spelled a word wrong because I really wanted to go to the regional spelling bee but everyone else spelled their word wrong to so we were all back in. My winning word was sequin,which is funny because I do rhythmic gymnastics and the leotards that we wear are covered in sequins.

This is my first post!

2006-03-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend (March 18, 2006) I won my Regional Spelling Bee! It was at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, and it was sponsored by the Portland Tribune.

I got there by winning my school spelling bee. But, I'm homeschooled! So you probably want to know how I won my school spelling bee. Well, I'll tell you. I belong to a group of homeschool families where we have extra classes and activities that we can choose to do. It's called Village Home Education Resource Center and you can read about it here.