Miller School

On Monday, we held our "Dress Rehearsal" for the upcoming Spelling Bee on the stage. Prior to this, we held all of our practices in the classroom, so this gave the students the opportunity to see what it would be like on the stage for our actual Bee, as well as learning how to move, which direction to go on stage, and hearing what they sounded like using the microphone! Mr. McClain even got the opportunity to see what it was like to be the pronouncer during our second practice!

As a special treat, students enjoyed Philly soft pretzels courtesy of one of our parents, Mrs. McCaffrey! The students were so excited and appreciative of her kind gesture! THANK YOU!❤

Today, we held our 18th Annual Miller School Spelling Bee, and, holy cow, was it exciting! The 5th grade GT students tackled words like: newfangled, embroiled, gargoyles, teriyaki, veterinarian, dysfunctional, and immunization before our winner finally emerged. Our Bee began in the cafeteria, but after several rounds there, we did not have a winner.

At approximately 10:30, we had to stop the Bee and move the remaining spellers upstairs to Mrs. Pettit's classroom due to lunches beginning. The "Lucky 13" who were still active in the Spelling Bee were: Erik Pickart, Chenxi Li, Brynn Paras, Reehan Tanvir, Tyler Papperman, Maya Melendez, Joey McCaffrey, Cassandra Perry, Mateo Cardona, Anaya Malik, Robert Lainez-Rojas, Tyler Rossi, and Enzo Yutzy. Over the next few rounds, our number went from 13 to five.

For five rounds, Erik Pickart, Chenxi Li, Reehan Tanvir, Anaya Malik, and Tyler Rossi went head to head before Tyler went out as our 5th place finisher in the 12th round. Two more rounds of competition saw Reehan go out in 4th place in round 14. Erik, Chenxi, and Anaya went back and forth spelling many difficult words until Erik exited in 3rd place in round 17.

For the next five rounds, Chenxi and Anaya went back and forth until Anaya misspelled in round 21. Chenxi then went into round 22 and emerged victorious by spelling C-A-V-A-L-I-E-R! Chenxi will now move on to the South Jersey Regional Spelling Bee which will be held on March 8th at WHYY Television studios in Philadelphia, and is sponsored by WHYY Television. The winner of that contest will go to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the Washington, D.C. area later this spring.

👏We'd like to give a special shout-out to all of you who were able to join us today! Even if you weren't here, though, we appreciate your support and know you were here in spirit!

Miss Hunt and Mrs. Pettit would like to extend a special thanks to our scribes Mrs. Levinson and Mr. McClain, as well as our pronouncer Mr. Battersby! Also, a huge shout out to Mrs. Slusarski, Mrs. Keiner, Mrs. Sharbaugh-Hunt, and Mrs. Thomas as well as our Front Office Staff whose assistance with our Bee is invaluable!