March Stories

  The soliloquy was facetious, and to exacerbate the situation, a saboteur was hiding behind the scenes. The play was a debacle. Although the vaquero was a great actor, we have dossiers on him. As soon as the play ended, I ran after him, trying to recruit him into our theater. He refused, a pity. Really, he could have done better.

                                                                                                                  - Shining, 6th

  There was once a vaquero in a land far, far, away. His name? Hose. (correction: Jose) He wanted to be a conquistador and search the lands for gold. But sadly, he was starting to go in debt, the dossiers sitting on his table. Especially since his father, Hose/Jose B* was sick. Learning now would just exacerbate his current situation. Conquesting would have to be tertiary on his list. So Jose sighed and started his horse feeling chagrin.  

                                                                                                                   - Michelle, 7th

*apologies if it’s not a B. Sorry, Michelle.

2016 Spell Success March Meeting Recap

Sign drawn by Emily 

Before we get to March’s meeting, I’d like to acknowledge Nairit Sarkar, a current speller, who made it to spelling bee regionals on March 26th-- just a day ago. Details on the Collin County Spelling Bee and the winner of the bee yesterday are posted below. Congrats to not only Nairit, but Neha, our mentor, and all of those that participated!  

March’s meeting was an extension to the Latin words our spellers covered in our last meeting, bringing back previous words such as “canine” and “corpuscle” and mixing in French and Spanish originated words along with them. Our mentors decided to twist up this meeting a little, and instead of doing things the traditional Spell Success way-- crosswords, a mini-bee, speech-writing-- they added in new activities like displaying words visually by drawing them, acting words with charades, and a little non-spelling activity with prizes!

After a quick “welcome back” from our mentors, our spellers zoomed right into the crosswords and sentence completion practices. Our spellers really knew their stuff; they breezed through French-originated words such as “bureaucracy” meaning  “a large group of people who are involved in running a government but who are not elected” and Spanish-originated words that are rarely seen such as “sarsaparilla” which means “a sweetened drink that is flavored with a substance made from the root of a plant”. Thanks Jacqueline for providing both our mentors and spellers with word lists. Our lives have been made easier.

Afterwards, our youngest speller and the 5th grade group moved on to the vocab card game where they chose a word and drew a picture of that word. For example, one of our spellers recreated the Spanish word “flotilla” meaning “a group of small ships” by depicting...well…..a group of small ships. Meanwhile, the oldest group participated in a little competitive game between Michelle and Shining on definitions and pronunciations. It was a very close match; Michelle was victorious with one point greater than Shining. Then, both the 5th grade group and the oldest group acted out words by playing charades, and even some of our mentors joined in. The word “saboteur” which means “a person who destroys or damages something deliberately” was demonstrated by randomly flailing arms everywhere. One speller demonstrated “flamboyant” meaning “having a very noticeable quality that attracts a lot of attention” by standing there smiling.

As a little break, Rooshi had the 5th grade group list as many animals as they could in a set time-limit. Keran won with 35 animals listed, winning an alligator (a word included in this meeting’s word lists) flash drive! As a conclusion to the meeting, our mentors had our spellers write a story using at least 5 of the words. Since there were so many spellers in the middle age group, I couldn’t get all of the stories without all of them feeling left out. But Michelle and Shining’s stories I did manage to record, and they’re posted above!

And of course, we wrapped up with everyone being rewarded with candy! March’s meeting was a great success, and there was much we covered in the limited time we had. Our mentors had an enjoyable time, and we really hope our spellers did, too! We’re hoping to make our meetings more consistent, so the next meeting won’t be in too long! Happy Easter! :(III)- 

Spell Success Study Words (March 26, 2016)

1^st-3^rd Grade Word List

1.      Humble: not proud : not thinking of yourself as better than other people

2.      Canine: a dog

3.      Jovial:  full of happiness and joy

4.      Primal: very basic and powerful

5.      Spectrum: the group of colors that a ray of light can be separated into including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet : the colors that can be seen in a rainbow

6.      Menu: a list of the foods that may be ordered at a restaurant

7.      Barrage: a dam placed in a watercourse to increase the depth of water or to divert it into a channel for navigation or irrigation

8.      Motif:  something (such as an important idea or subject) that is repeated throughout a book, story, etc.

9.      Suave: behaving in a relaxed, confident, and pleasant way in social situations

10.  Gorgeous: very beautiful or attractive

11.  Mascot: a person, animal, or object used as a symbol to represent a group (such as a sports team) and to bring good luck

12.  Rehearse: to prepare for a public performance of a play, a piece of music, etc., by practicing the performance

13.  Tornado: a violent and destructive storm in which powerful winds move around a central point

14.  Vanilla:  a dark substance that is made from the beans of a tropical plant and that is used to flavor food

15.  Fiesta: a public celebration in Spain and Latin America with parades and dances in honor of a saint

16.  Cafeteria: a place (such as a restaurant or a room in a school) where people get food at a counter and carry it to a table for eating

17.  Sierra: a range of mountains with sharply pointed peaks

18.  Alligator: a large reptile that has a long body, thick skin, and sharp teeth, that lives in the tropical parts of the U.S. and China, and that is related to crocodiles

19.  Mesa: a hill that has a flat top and steep sides and that is found in the southwestern U.S.

20.  Collage: a work of art that is made by attaching pieces of different materials (such as paper, cloth, or wood) to a flat surface

4^th-5^th Grade Word List

1.      Fidelity: the quality or state of being faithful

2.      Ominous: suggesting that something bad is going to happen in the future

3.      Triumvirate: a group of three people who share a position of authority or power

4.      Ductile: of a metal : capable of being bent or pulled into different shapes

5.      Vivisection: the activity or practice of doing scientific or medical experiments on live animals

6.      Bureaucracy:  a large group of people who are involved in running a government but who are not elected

7.      Flamboyant: having a very noticeable quality that attracts a lot of attention

8.      Crochet: a method of making cloth or clothing by using a needle with a hook at the end to form and weave loops in a thread

9.      Altruism: feelings and behavior that show a desire to help other people and a lack of selfishness

10.  Vogue:  something (such as a way of dressing or behaving) that is fashionable or popular in a particular time and place

11.  Maladroit: very awkward : not skillful or adroit

12.  Renegade: a person who leaves one group, religion, etc., and joins another that opposes it

13.  Hacienda: a large estate in a country where people speak Spanish

14.  Lariat: a long light rope (as of hemp or leather) used with a running noose to catch livestock or with or without the noose to tether grazing animals :  lasso

15.  Flotilla: a group of small ships

16.  Peccadillo: a small mistake or fault that is not regarded as very bad or serious

17.  Finesse: skill and cleverness that is shown in the way someone deals with a situation, problem, etc.

18.  Amenable: willing to agree or to accept something that is wanted or asked for

19.  Detente: an ending of unfriendly or hostile relations between countries

20.  Recidivist: a person who continues to commit crimes even after being caught and punished

6^th-8^th Grade Word List

1.      Soliloquy: a long, usually serious speech that a character in a play makes to an audience and that reveals the character's thoughts

2.      Corpuscle:  one of the cells that move in the body

3.      Tertiary: third in order, importance, or value

4.      Exacerbate: to make (a bad situation, a problem, etc.) worse

5.      Facetious: used to describe speech that is meant to be funny but that is usually regarded as annoying, silly, or not proper

6.      Chagrin: a feeling of being frustrated or annoyed because of failure or disappointment

7.      Saboteur: a person who destroys or damages something deliberately

8.      Fusillade: a large number of shots that are fired very quickly

9.      Protege: a young person who is taught and helped by someone who has a lot of knowledge and experience

10.  Debacle: a great disaster or complete failure

11.  Raconteur: someone who is good at telling stories

12.  Poignant:  causing a strong feeling of sadness

13.  Rendezvous: a meeting with someone that is arranged for a particular time and place and that is often secret

14.  Sassafras: a tall tree of eastern North America whose dried root bark was formerly used in medicine or as a flavoring

15.  Conquistador: a leader in the Spanish conquests of America, Mexico, and Peru in the 16th century

16.  Vaquero:  herdsman, cowboy

17.  Picaresque:  telling a story about the adventures of a usually playful and dishonest character

18.  Sarsaparilla:  a sweetened drink that is flavored with a substance made from the root of a plant

19.  Repertoire:  all the plays, songs, dances, etc., that a performer or group of performers knows and can perform

20.  Dossier: a group of papers that contain detailed information about someone or something

Spell Success Meeting Notice (March 2016)

2016 Collin County Spelling Bee: One Champion, Many Winners!

Only two spellers left in the final rounds

Collin County Spelling Bee was held this week on the 3^rd. Nairit Sarkar, a 6^th grader from Rice Middle School won the spelling bee with the word tussive. Nairit will go on to our regional spelling bee on March 26. This is the second time he is on the quest for a seat on the stage of National Spelling Bee.  

The above is a short version of the event, and the event deserves more elaboration. In fact, February 3^rd was a significant day for our local spellers. This year, sixty two spellers competed for four hours for a chance to advance to the regional event. As the minutes went by, one after another, they stepped on to the center stage, facing the judges, braving some extremely difficult words, and earning high honors with either correct or incorrect spellings regardless, as true champion spellers do.

Neha spells a word on stage

In the later rounds, words went over the official word lists such as the Spell It!, the school words, the Paideia, and the CWL. These are the word lists some of our best spellers had spent months and years to prepare. Besides words from more demanding list CWL, such as tulle, velveteen, and acclivity, there were words that we often refer to as the “surprise words”, such as graptolite, diastema, klaxon (this one was used in 2007 in regional bee as a surprise word), and the winning word tussive. These words are not in the official study lists. They are the ones that came directly from the MW3rd. 

The appearances of “surprise words” can be very frustrating to spellers, especially to the ones who have less than two years’ experience in the bee. As spellers will need to spend so much time perfecting their official lists, which requires at least two years of dedicated study. Only with more time, spellers can venture outside the official lists, and start study pages of the MW3rd. When I talked to parents with aspiring spellers, I often had to stress one observation of mine: the surprise words are not too surprising after all. They tend to be medical or science words, and tend to have special spelling patterns or sounds. A careful speller can pick up many of these surprise words daily. By the way, the use of the word tussive turns out to be fairly common, as we could have heard our doctors talking about anti-tussive medicines for a cough that we seem to suffer often in the winter time. 

Our readers can find some of the harder words from Amy’s words and Rebecca's words on our website. Other study aids such as Hexco’s spelling products can be helpful as well. But the most important thing is to learn to collect words on your own, by following guide such as the spelling lessons Amy posted on this site in the past years. We also encourage spellers to attend spelling bee events each year. Basically, be more bee-like: collecting and accumulating interesting words tirelessly.

We will watch the upcoming Dallas Morning News Regional Bee on March 26, with best wishes to our champion speller Nairit and all the other champions from counties around Dallas.