Erika has had a busy last few months and we are proud of her for all of the things she has accomplished recently. In December we found out that Erika had made it on to the district level for her Reflections entry at the school. She wrote a poem about Helen Keller. Here is the poem:
Helen
Keller
Helen Keller, deaf and blind,
Had
a dream, she’d made up her mind.
She
was going to college, she didn’t care-
when
others said she wouldn’t make it there.
She
worked hard, she made it through.
Helen’s
teacher helped her, too.
Now people
today are inspired
By
Helen’s acts and desires.
In
herself she did believe
And
her dreams she did achieve.
By Erika Parkinson
There were 12 kids from her whole school who were chosen to go on to district. We attended the District Awards Ceremony in Brigham City on January 21st and were excited to find that she would again advance to the STATE level!! Wow! We have not heard anything further about if she will advance at all since then, but we were so excited that night that she placed again. When at first they didn't call her name as they were reading out the Awards of Achievement, she seemed really worried, like they forgot her or something. Aaron and I just smiled because we knew what that meant. They called her name with the second group of kids, for the Award of Excellence. She was so surprised! Yea!! The group of kids she is sitting with in the top right picture are all the winners from every elementary school in Box Elder County. She was the only one from her school who went on. We are so proud of her!!
Another exciting thing for Erika was the opportunity to perform in a shakespeare play at her school on March 19th. She was chosen to be "The Queen". How fun! She really didn't have a whole lot more speaking parts than a lot of the other kids that had lines, but her role required that she acted the part, and she DID! I had a fun time dressing her up like a queen and doing her hair and makeup. She loves acting and puts her heart into it! The play was quite short with a 10 min clip from four Shakespeare plays- Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, and Romeo and Juliet. She was part of the "King and Queens' court", which gave commentary before and after each play.
It was quite comical at times, but I think the kids and teachers did a really good job putting it together! This was a good opportunity to learn a little about Shakespeare and to be exposed to a different kind of language. The kids also had the opportunity to be visited by some actors from the actual Shakesperean festival in Cedar City who did an acting workshop. They also came up on April 13th and performed one play for the older grades- "The Taming of the Shrew."
Just 2 days after the play was over, Erika participated in the Garland Elementary school spelling bee. She had been studying off and on for weeks before the event, but having after school play practices the month before made it hard to cover it as well as she could've. Nonetheless, Erika ended up getting 2ND PLACE in the spelling bee, and it was so fun for Aaron and I to watch! She did so much better than we had expected! At the end of the spelling bee, she and the first place winner went back and forth at least 8 times until finally she missed a word. I was on the edge of my seat!! What an exciting week for her!
She ended up going on to the District spelling Bee a couple weeks later, and only made it through a couple rounds. This included the top 3 spellers from each elementary school. I could tell Erika was really nervous that night and I think that her nerves just got the better of her. The word she missed was one that she knew, she just rushed too quickly through it. We heard later that the spelling bee went over 13 rounds and 2 1/2 hours long, so I guess it was a mixed blessing she didn't win, huh? It would've been a long night. We were just proud of her for how far she went with that and for giving it her best!!
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| Erika getting ready for the district spelling bee |
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