Good Sport Gwen

• Hurray!
• Stung by the Spelling Bee
• Gwen’s Great Game
• Dear Parents

Hurray!

All the children are cheering for Gwen. She races down the soccer field during recess, dribbling the ball the whole way. She kicks the ball hard, and it flies through the air and into the goal. “Hurray!” cheers her whole team. Gwen grins… she loves to play soccer. She’s the fastest runner, the hardest kicker, and the highest scorer on the team.

Delaney, Gwen’s teammate, has the ball. Another player from the other team steals the ball from Delaney. Gwen steals it back. Delaney scores. Everyone cheers again. Then the bell rings—recess is over.

Everyone congratulates Gwen as they shuffle back inside. Delaney explains they only won because Gwen passed the ball back to Delaney to score… that makes Gwen a good sport! All the children exclaim “Hurray for Good Sport Gwen!”

Miss Sparks explains she’s proud of the way Delaney and Gwen work together. And then, her attention shifts to the words on the chalkboard. Miss Sparks says they’ll study the words together, and then on Friday, they’ll have a spelling bee. Miss Sparks broke the class up into two teams based on their name alphabetically. Each person will be asked to spell a word, and the team with the most correctly spelled words wins.

Yay! Gwen loves being on a team, and she loves games. She can’t wait for the spelling bee.

When Friday comes, the two teams line up in order. Avery receives the first word for the blue team: run. Avery spells it correctly. Now, Lindy on the red team must spell hop, which she correctly spells. Next, Gwen must spell cut. But she doesn’t know if it’s spelled with a C or a K. She guesses C, and is correct!

Stung by the Spelling Bee

The words continue. Nathan spells can for the red team. But then it’s Delaney’s turn to spell sit, but she accidentally spells it as C-I-T. And then, Skylar on the red team manages to spell the word correctly. Now, the blue team, Gwen’s team, is behind. Connor is given the word pen for the blue team. Gwen can see him thinking. “Come on, Connor. That’s easy!” Gwen urges. Connor’s face turns red as he says “P-I-N.” Miss Sparks shakes her head. Gwen glares at Connor. Spencer correctly spells it as P-E-N. Now the blue team is even further behind the red team!

The spelling bee continues on and on. Avery spells hat, but Hallie misspells cot. And then Gwen spells H-E-T for hit. She smacks her forehead. Logan gets hit right. And with that, the red team wins the spelling bee. Everybody cheers for the red team, except Gwen, who frowns.

Gwen exclaims they were terrible! Delaney shrugs, after all, it’s not a big deal. Gwen feels very much that it is a big deal. She stomps her foot and bursts out that the blue team stinks! Everybody turns to look at Gwen, surprised by her outburst. Spencer leans over to Lindy and whispers “Gwen is really mad. She must have been stung by the spelling bee.” Lindy responds that nobody will want to be on Gwen’s team again.

Gwen feels bad that she was such a bad sport. She’s sure her teammates are unhappy with her. The next Monday, Miss Sparks adds more words to the board, and announces they’ll have another spelling bee on Friday. Gwen blushes. She’s sure everyone remembers how she was such a bad sport.

At recess, Gwen stays in her seat. When Miss Sparks asks her what’s wrong, Gwen explains that she thinks nobody will want to be on her team for soccer. Miss Sparks prompts that Gwen helped Delaney at soccer, which is exactly what good sports do. Maybe Gwen can help her team at spelling, too.

Gwen responds that she practices soccer a lot with her team. Maybe they can practice spelling, too. And, Gwen will practice being a good sport, too. That way, she won’t be stung by the spelling bee again.

Gwen’s Great Game

The next day at recess, Gwen gathers her whole team together. She apologizes for acting the way she did after the spelling bee the week before. She hopes they’ll forgive her, because she made a game to help them practice spelling. Avery, Connor, and Hallie are hesitant, but Delaney asks for more information.

Gwen explains they stand in a line facing the soccer goal. Gwen will pass the first person in line a ball, and give them a word. If they get it right, they can kick it into the goal. If they incorrectly spell the word, they go to the back of the line.

The children line up to play the game. Delaney spells dog right, and kicks the ball into the goal which a whoosh. Connor is asked to spell get, and spells it as G-I-T. In a flash, Connor runs to the back of the line. The team continues to play the game all recess long. They continue to play on Wednesday and Thursday, too. They practice spelling the words over and over again.

Finally on Friday, Miss Sparks tells everyone to line up for the spelling bee. The blue team is ready!

Delaney is asked to spell sat, and correctly spells it. Spencer correctly spells rug. Then Connor on the blue team spells bag. The words continue, and the blue team spells most of their words right, but the children on the red team do, too. When someone on her team misspells a word, Gwen says “That’s okay,” and she cheers when someone on her team spells a word right. Gwen is so busy cheering she is surprised when Miss Sparks announces the last word has been spelled.

Then, Miss Sparks tells everyone that there were twenty words in the whole bee. The blue team spelled nine correctly, and the red team spelled eleven. The blue team looks over at Gwen. She smiles. Now she knows that good sports win every time, no matter the score. She says “That’s okay, blue team. We will do better next time.”

Miss Sparks walks over and congratulates the whole blue team on doing better this week. Avery says that’s all because of Gwen’s spelling game. The red team looks over and asks if they can play Gwen’s spelling game, too. Gwen says “Sure!” The more the merrier. Miss Sparks’ eyeglasses glitter. She’s very proud of Good Sport Gwen.

Dear Parents

Discusses how there’s all sorts of good sports, and it’s important to bounce back after running into a setback. Topics include:

• Look for good sportsmanship in others
• Give new activities a try
• Put fun first
• Set a personal goal
• Be a cheerleader for others
• Brainstorm fun and fair ways to form teams to keep things even and fair
• Ask how each member of teams contribute
• After defeat or a disappointment, let your child blow off steam healthily
• Make a Feel Better Box where your child can store drawings of favorite activities
• We can’t always control what happens, but remember to look ahead for the next game