Spelling bee prep?

[Dmmetler]

DD will be competing in her first spelling bee in a few weeks. I'm not worried about her practicing words at this point, only in what I should do to help this be positive for her, no matter what. She's good at spelling (she's one of those kids who can figure out almost anything and be close-and if she misses, it's due to the fact that she picked another possible spelling for a sound, not that she was totally off), but doesn't handle making mistakes well. I'm torn on whether or not this is a good idea, but she was interested, and I figured it was worth letting her try. Since she's in 1st grade, this isn't a preliminary for a bigger bee, only the local "school" level one (except that the "school" in this case is a homeschool association).

[abbeyej]

I would just have some practice "bees" in the living room, so she gets used to spelling orally and loudly enough to be heard. Role play the whole event. Call her name. Have her step forward. You give her the word. She repeats it aloud (practice the loudly and clearly part), she spells it, and says the word again. You answer "Correct," or "I'm sorry, that is not correct" and she steps back. It'll help her to see that nothing awful happens if she misses a word, and the format won't seem so strange once she's actually there. Give her some super easy words, some words at her level, then something INSANE that she couldn't possibly know or spell. After you say, "I'm sorry, that is not correct", be sure you both laugh about how that one was just impossible -- and then point out that sometimes that happens in a bee, and it's totally okay.

 

Our experience with spelling bees (both small home school bees and larger district bees) has been that everyone is very supportive and is really pulling for each of the kids. Sometimes the rules are relaxed for younger ones not advancing to higher level bees, so, for instance, the kids might be allowed to re-start a word if they realize they've made a mistake. (Official bee rules are that you may re-start, if you ask to do so, but you can't change anything that you've said.) Our little home school bee always begins with a practice round (kids spell their own names just to get used to speaking in front of a crowd)...

 

You might also plan a small fun thing for after the bee. Ice cream is my go-to... ;) That way she knows that regardless of how she does -- whether you're celebrating an excellent showing or consoling her on a frustrating mistake -- there's something to look forward to.

[sunriseiz]

I would just have some practice "bees" in the living room, so she gets used to spelling orally and loudly enough to be heard. Role play the whole event. Call her name. Have her step forward. You give her the word. She repeats it aloud (practice the loudly and clearly part), she spells it, and says the word again. You answer "Correct," or "I'm sorry, that is not correct" and she steps back. It'll help her to see that nothing awful happens if she misses a word, and the format won't seem so strange once she's actually there. Give her some super easy words, some words at her level, then something INSANE that she couldn't possibly know or spell. After you say, "I'm sorry, that is not correct", be sure you both laugh about how that one was just impossible -- and then point out that sometimes that happens in a bee, and it's totally okay.

 

Our experience with spelling bees (both small home school bees and larger district bees) has been that everyone is very supportive and is really pulling for each of the kids.

 

You might also plan a small fun thing for after the bee. Ice cream is my go-to... ;) That way she knows that regardless of how she does -- whether you're celebrating an excellent showing or consoling her on a frustrating mistake -- there's something to look forward to.

:iagree:

 

DD competed for the 2nd time this year and everyone is really REALLY supportive of everyone else. We did a little role playing practice as mentioned by pp. Also, our bee (from Scripps) had a list of practice words. Last year she barely looked at them. This year, she looked at them some during the couple of weeks before the bee. Most of all, have fun! :)