On April 7th, Irena, Maria, and I took thirteen of our students up to Skopje for the National Spelling Bee. This was the first time we were bringing students to the Spelling Bee; last year I went just to go check it out. Our students had been practicing for weeks and they were excited to compete and meet other students from around Macedonia. In total around 800-900 kids from grades 5-12 came from all over Macedonia to compete. It was a full day event. Irena, myself and the students left Resen at around 5am and we did not get back to Resen until around 8pm.
On top of helping Irena with our students, I was also volunteering at the Bee. Based on last year, they "created" a position for me.......Hallway Monitor. Last year all the students were in the hallways waiting for their turn to spell and it tended to get a little noisy. So my "teacher voice" came out a few times. I wanted to be in the hallways again this year, because I could help out at the Bee and also watch my students compete at the same time. All our kids did a great job. They had to stand in line and when it was their turn, they had to write the word instead of the traditional way of "spelling" the word out loud. Most of our Resen students made it to the finals and two of them got very far along in the finals.
When I met up with all of them at the end of the day, I was expecting them to be tired and cranky, since it was a VERY full day. But it was just the opposite. When I entered "their room" (they had claimed it so all the kids knew where Irena and Maria were) I was greeted with a loud "HEY!" They were still full of energy and talking and laughing about what had happened during the bees. A big reason why everyone was still in good spirits was because one of our students, Vojo (5th grade), aka the class clown, was acting out scenes from Turkish soap operas and telling jokes. Even during the three hour combi ride back, he was still joking and making everyone laugh. Irena and I have already decided that he "HAS" to go again next year, since he is now our Spelling Bee Cheerleader.
On top of helping Irena with our students, I was also volunteering at the Bee. Based on last year, they "created" a position for me.......Hallway Monitor. Last year all the students were in the hallways waiting for their turn to spell and it tended to get a little noisy. So my "teacher voice" came out a few times. I wanted to be in the hallways again this year, because I could help out at the Bee and also watch my students compete at the same time. All our kids did a great job. They had to stand in line and when it was their turn, they had to write the word instead of the traditional way of "spelling" the word out loud. Most of our Resen students made it to the finals and two of them got very far along in the finals.
When I met up with all of them at the end of the day, I was expecting them to be tired and cranky, since it was a VERY full day. But it was just the opposite. When I entered "their room" (they had claimed it so all the kids knew where Irena and Maria were) I was greeted with a loud "HEY!" They were still full of energy and talking and laughing about what had happened during the bees. A big reason why everyone was still in good spirits was because one of our students, Vojo (5th grade), aka the class clown, was acting out scenes from Turkish soap operas and telling jokes. Even during the three hour combi ride back, he was still joking and making everyone laugh. Irena and I have already decided that he "HAS" to go again next year, since he is now our Spelling Bee Cheerleader.
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