On Wednesday, March 28th, Stephanie Teding represented Cooper Elementary at the Solano County Spelling Bee.  There were 44 participants from various public and private schools throughout Solano County.  The top two spellers would go on to represent Solano County at the California Spelling Bee later in the spring.

Round after round Stephanie continued to spell words correctly, maintaining her composure under incredible scrutiny.  As the night carried on, the number of participants dwindled as words were misspelled.  In her own quiet and confident way, Stephanie persevered, spelling such words as upheaval, equivalent, unanimous, onomatopoeia, abstemious, heptahedron, macrothylogeny, and xanthotrichous correctly to continue in the spelling bee.  Finally, at 10:00 at night - four hours after the competition had begun - something happened that has never happened before.  The word list was exhausted and officials had to call a break to the spelling bee because there were no more words left for the three remaining contestants.  Stephanie and the two others will participate in a Round of Champions in April to determine which two students will represent Solano County at the California Spelling Bee.

What the audience witnessed that night was a display of smarts, composure and competitive spirit that would rival any sporting event.  What the audience was unable to witness was the amount of effort and practice that Stephanie and the other participants had put into preparing for the spelling bee prior to the event.  Stephanie also had the support of her family and fellow Cooper students throughout this time in preparation for the event.  Her youngest brother, Sean, sat in the front row cheering for his sister in the final rounds of the spelling bee and in the back were her parents, surrounded by other family members, rooting her on.

Cooper is so proud of all the effort and time that Stephanie has put in to be a great speller.  In our eyes, Stephanie was a winner before the competition even began.

Thursday, March 22nd was Family Science Night at Cooper Elementary.  Students, parents, grandparents, siblings, and other family members all came to do experiments that dealt with sound waves, muscles, the mind, blood vessels, germs, and many other topics.  The school brought Explore It!, a group based out of U.C. Davis to the multipurpose room and volunteers facilitated a fun-filled night of learning.

Thanks to Cooper parents Jerome and Patti Garrido for their donation of ice cream to reward students who have memorized their math facts.  Cooper students spent the first couple of months studying their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts to earn this reward.  Thanks also to the Butcher family for the donation of bowls students used to enjoy this delicious reward.