Congratulations to all the students who participated in our annual Spelling Bee. We had over 400 students take a written spelling test on the 6th of December to qualify for our Oral School Spelldown. Some of the 25 words students had to spell in the written test were: visual, hydraulic, punctual, kinetic, smithereens, blizzard, patio, and procrastinate. Additionally there were 5 tiebreaker words such as: contentious, crustacean and excruciating. All students in grades 4-6 took the spelling test along with interested students in 7th and 8th grade. Congratulations to Jeffrey Shi, 6th grade, who missed only one word on the written test and spelled ALL the tiebreakers correctly! 25 students qualified to participate in the oral spelldown by getting 16 or more words correct on the written test.
The oral spelldown took place on the 13th of December with 23 students participating: Violet Mahler, Max McAulif, Peter Tulowieci, Zach Osborne, Grace Coon, Amy Francesconi, Rechael Kaufman, Ethan Mosure, Jackson Masters, Katy Wangeness, Emily Falge, Dan Wrona, Sebastian LaVine, Maddy Mahoney, Jeffrey Shi, Josh Barlotta, Justin Shoeneck, Kevin Brown, Nick Zimmer, Brett Weiler, Noah Brown, Nate Keller, Anna Perry, Lyle Freeman, Matthew Mathieson, Riler LaFrance, Mike Provvidenti. This group consisted of three 4th graders, two 5th graders, nine 6th graders, six 7th graders and eight 8th graders.
It took 8 rounds of words to get down to our final three! Zach Osborne came in third place as our runner up. After the 10th round we had our two finalist that will be moving on, Anna Perry and Daniel Wrona. It took another 7 rounds of words to name a new school champion, Anna Perry! That was the longest and toughest spell off we have had in many years. The last two words spelled correctly by Anna were: pompadour and parliamentary.
Both Anna and Dan are 7th graders and will represent Driver Middle School in the Regional Written Spelling Bee sponsored by the Syracuse Post Standard and WCNY studios. The next phase of the competition will be on January 19th at Onondaga Community College. If Anna and/or Dan are in the top 35 spellers after that round they will move on to the televised oral spelling bee at the WCNY studios in February.
Congratulations Anna, Dan and Zach! You are amazing spellers!!! We are proud to have you represent our school!
That's me in the Perry the platypus shirt
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