Ms Bubble the Rabbit woke up, feeling cheerful. She taught a class of little animal angels at MoonLight Sanctuary. Her students was having their first Spelling Bee competition today! A wave of excitement swept over her being. She wondered which of her students would win the competition.
She rushed to her classroom. Her angels were already waiting for her. Bright grins plastered on their faces, they were chatting animatedly among themselves. The chatter died down as everyone looked at her expectantly.
Without hesitation, she announced the first word: “billion”. The animals immediately scrubbed furiously on their whiteboards. One by one, they raised their whiteboard.
Ms Bubble saw Little Lion who was practically jumping up and down with joy. She asked him, “Oh, Little Lion. Could you explain to the class how you got the spelling of “billion” correct?”
Little Lion puffed out his chest and proudly said, “I used the word-within-a-word trick. Did you not notice that there’s the word ‘lion’ embedded inside ‘billion’?”
His classmates ooh-ed and aah-ed, impressed by his quick thinking. But there was no time to waste, as Ms Bubble announced the second word: “because”.
“Little Elephant,” Ms Bubble asked the young elephant who was rocking her trunk to and fro, “How do you know the spelling of ‘because’?”
“I used a mnemonic,” began Little Elephant shyly, “and it so happens that the mnemonic has my name! Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants - combine the first letter of all the words in this sentence together and you can spell ‘because’!” She raised her trunk in triumph.
The animals laughed. What a clever way! They waited for Ms Bubble to call out the third word, and she did. It was “disappointed”.
Little Hippo spelt the word so fast that everyone was stunned. He noticed that all the attention was focused on him and spoke out, “There are two P’s in ‘disappointed’! Just like my name, hippo. Two P’s for the win!” He flashed a toothy grin.
Ms Bubble beamed widely. This was shaping up to be an exciting competition. She couldn’t wait to see what spelling tricks the rest of her students had up their sleeves.