The "Primal" Mistake

McKenna is a very smart girl. I have said this in the past, but it always amazes me how much smarter she is than Ryan or I ever were at this age. She is also eager to achieve. She wants to try everything that her new school has to offer. Sending her to Ramirez has opened the world to her and she is gobbling up everything she can. I love that about her.

Her latest adventure was the Spelling Bee. Before Christmas the kids were told that the spelling bee would be at the beginning of January. If they wanted to participate then they could get a list of words to study over the break. She was very excited about this and she got the list. It was a list of 50 medium hard words that were given to the 2nd-5th graders. The first level of competition would be in the classrooms. The top two from each class would go to the school wide tournament. 

McKenna won the class bee with flying colors.

They sent home the official 2011 National Spelling Bee booklet for the winners to study for the school wide competition. We didn't have to study all of them - only about 200. It was a bit daunting but we did our best. They covered Latin, Old English, New World, Dutch and Spanish words. I couldn't spell most of these words (but she is smarter than me) so I didn't know what to expect.

We studied for a week and a half, a little bit everyday. I wanted to keep it fresh and on her brain but didn't want to stress her out either.  When the morning of the Spelling Bee came she was nervous but also very excited. We gave her the "we are so proud of you no matter how far you make it" speech and sent her off.

Alana and I went to watch McKenna (I really didn't want to bring her but it worked out that I had to). When the kids were presented I was kind of sad to see that McKenna was the only kid that dressed up. What are parents thinking these days! So, of course she was the cutest kid up there. :)

Then it was her turn.

She very confidently stood up to the mike.

The announcer said the word....Primal. (OH, crap! I don't think we covered this one!)

Then McKenna spelt, P-R-I-M-L-E. 

They rang the bell (meaning she was out) and she left the stage. 

Of course it was one of the words we never got to studying! 

She took it really well. I was afraid she would cry. She is really hard on herself at times. But she was perfect. I think she just chalked it up to another new experience and moved on. I hope she tries again next year. It will be good training for Speech and Debate in high school.

P.S. Alana started screaming while one of the other kids was spelling their word. All four judges turned around at the same time and gave me evil looks. I will not bring her next year.