K-E-L-T-O-N goes to the Spelling Bee!

As much as I'd like to take credit for it, Kelton has just always naturally been a quick learner.  Spelling and reading have always come pretty easy to him.  I wasn't surprised when he was one of the kids in his class to move onto to grade level bee.  I was super excited for him (and totally nervous) when he then moved onto the school bee.

We spent night after night practicing words.  I loved watching him concentrate as he sounded out the words in his head.  When he'd miss a word, I'd have him write it out a few times and by the next night, he'd nail it! 

Finally, the night of the school bee arrived and he went in confident he could spell words like contemporaneous, baccalaureate and hor d'oeuvres.

We brought a bag of smarties to share with the other kids.

I was a huge ball of nerves when things got started.  They started with some pretty easy words and I was even more nervous because we didn't practice them as much as we did the really hard ones.  Not very far in, Kelton got pleasant and I knew immediately he would spell it with ..sent.  Poor guy barely made it to sit with me before the tears started flowing. 

The 3rd graders all got out first and the last 3 standing were all 5th graders.  Everyone got a certificate and we went out for pie afterwards with a couple of the other families.  We are super proud of him for making it as far as he did and he still has two more years to give it another go!