Sutter Spelling Bee champ!

Jacob won the school spelling bee today with the word, "exuberant". =)

We were given a 600 word list ahead of time, so it didn't seem like it would be too overwhelming to study for it. Word list A, word list B, and word list C. We went over the whole list once during Christmas break and narrowed it down to about 30 words that needed extra review. Then this past week, we reviewed those last 30 words. This past weekend was so busy, so we didn't adequately study. Even up to last night, I spent about 20 minutes with him and there were some words he mis-spelled. This morning, we spent another 20 minutes on it, and it seemed like he knew every word that I gave him. I knew that at the end, he just had to keep his cool and not get nervous because if he made a mistake, it would probably be due to nervousness.

The spelling bee was at 8:45am. Jacob told me that he didn't want me to watch because he didn't want me to be nervous. After I dropped him and Joanna off at school, I just could NOT resist. So at 9:00, I slipped into the cafeteria just to see what the spelling bee looked like. I caught Jacob spelling two words . "equal", and another word.

Finally, I decided that I didn't want to get Jacob nervous, so I gestured in the back to ask him whether I should stay or leave. He tilted his head toward the door, so I knew what that meant.

I drove in to work and had to send the principal an email asking for the result. Mr. Funcheon was kind enough to send me a reply at 10:21 telling me "JACOB WON! The winning word was exuberant".

At the moment, Jacob is resistant to the idea of going to the next level. I told him before the bee that I wouldn't *force* him to go. I was afraid he was throw the last word just to not have to go to the last word. In fact, during Christmas break, when I pulled him away from his friends for 20 minutes ONLY to study for the spelling bee, he said, "I knew I shouldn't have won the classroom spelling bee because you would do this to me."