IN THE CLASSROOM

Danette Goulet

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.

Students sat all around me, anxiously biting lower lips and concentrating

intently.

“What was the last word she said?” Beau Gallois, 11, asked fretfully.

You’d think they were taking finals, not playing spelling bingo. But

then, all you get from taking a final is a grade.

If you win spelling bingo, you get a Jolly Rancher candy.

So in the true spirit of investigative journalism, I grabbed a card and

jumped in.

I joined students in Jeanne Garrison’s fifth-grade class at Kaiser

Elementary School in Costa Mesa as they carefully copied their spelling

words onto paper bingo sheets. Students were sure to study their spelling

words because everyone knows that if the words are spelled incorrectly,

your bingo doesn’t count.

These were tough words, too -- sieve, chasm, suspicious, petered,

transfixed. I was impressed.

As I filled out my card, I had a little helper by the name of Lynelle

Johnson, who was teaching me the tricks of the trade. If you put your

free space in the top left corner, she told me conspiratorially, you can

use it when you play three types of bingo: regular five in a row, the X,

or the postage stamp, which goes around the edges of the board.

OK. I had my bingo board set and a pile of construction paper scraps to

use as chips. I was ready to go.

“Rummaging,” Garrison announced.

Got that one.

“Vouch.”

Yes, yes, doing well.

“Impulse.”

Oh yeah. I’m on a roll.

It doesn’t seem to matter who you’re up against, that competitive spirit

lives on -- in some of us, anyway.

Just as my board started to fill up and show potential, someone suddenly

yelled, “bingo!”

Just as suddenly, the room was in chaos. There were 20 groans and one

bellow -- “nooooooo.”

Garrison chuckled and advised the students to keep the pieces on their

boards until she verified the winner’s board.

Once it was verified, students invariably asked “couldn’t we just keep

going?”

Each game was the same scenario -- so close, yet no dice.

Then, just as we were about to start the last game, my advisor, Lynelle,

scooted over next to me.

“You’re good luck,” she declared.

Why? I don’t know. I hadn’t won a single game yet.

Then it happened. It was the very end of the game when everyone began

shouting bingo and I glanced over at Lynelle’s card.

She had only one space left to fill -- “bafflement.” Garrison had just

called out “bafflement,” which I promptly pointed out to Lynelle.

Perhaps I was good luck after all.

FYI

* Who: Students in Jeanne Garrison’s fifth-grade class

* Where: Kaiser Elementary School

* What: Several riveting games of spelling bingo

* Lesson: To help students learn their spelling words