by Allison He
For the first meeting, we focused on preparing the spellers using the
Spell It! word lists that are going to be used for this year's school spelling
bee. The mentors created activities such as word matching games, crossword
puzzles, mini spelling bees, etc. in order to give the spellers an introduction
on the Spell It! words.
To start off the meeting, Michael gave a presentation on how to
prepare for spelling bees, good studying habits, and the kind of words students
will cover throughout this year. This helped to give an idea of
what we were expecting from those that choose
to really get into studying words.
We began by splitting up into three different age groups with at least one mentor leading a task per group. Jacqueline had the 1st-3rd graders work on crossword puzzles that William made using the Spell It! word lists for their grade levels. Her four students sped through the crosswords with little difficulty, and the higher level words proved to be only a bit challenging. The five 6th-8th graders had a harder time matching words and their definitions using the 6th-8th Spell It! word lists, but they made it through with Megha, Emily, and Neha's encouragement and guidance. Rooshi, who had prepared the 4th-5th grade level crossword puzzles, and Kyle spent the first activity with the middle age group. Kyle and Rooshi aided our spellers' progress on the worksheets. 
After completing the first task, the four 1st-3rd graders participated in a mini spelling bee with Neha as the judge. Although one of them misspelled "glass", the speller was unfazed by her mistake. Some of the more challenging words like "pamper" were pretty tricky, but they handled them well.
At the same time, the 4th-5th graders had moved on to another activity, which was to match words to their definitions, similar to what the third group had done previously. The last activity was the fly-swatting game where difficult 8th grade Spell It! words such as "inclement", meaning "unpleasantly cold or wet", and "arboreal", meaning "of or relating to trees" were used. The 6th-8th graders were split up into two teams with the first as "Blue Team" and the second as "Orange Team". Many of the spellers had a hard time, and in the end, both teams were tied with four points each.
After
a rough day of spelling and hopefully learning new words, everyone was rewarded
with Kit Kats and Jolly Ranchers for their hard work. Kyle stated at the
beginning of the meeting, "I am here because I want to teach the other
kids some words and to learn from this experience," which is what spell
success mentors should really strive for. This first meeting was a great start
for both mentors and students, and we look forward to seeing everyone at our
next meeting! 