Spelling Bee 2013

Last night two of my kids competed in a spelling bee. Who knew watching my kids spell could give me a panic attack?  It was really well done and was surprisingly a lot of fun. 

Last year, we didn't prepare very well and my kids were both out by their second word. It was good motivation this year for my kids to prepare better. Well, I am happy to say their hard work paid off!! They had 3rd and 4th graders in the same group so Porter (4th grade) and Bella (3rd grade) were in the same group. They started with the 3rd grade words and continued to go up in grade level until they can get a winner. Bella ended up getting 4th place, wahoo!! And Porter got 2nd place!!! 

Honestly, my favorite part of the spelling bee was when Bella would get a really hard word, spell it correctly and Porter would cheer for her. My second favorite part was how Bella would walk up to the microphone. She walked up like she was royalty, sauntering to the front of the stage, it was awesome.

Here are some pictures of the monkeys, just an FYI I just used my camera on my phone, so the pictures are not greatest.

Here are some of the contestants, it ended around 9pm so a lot of the kids had gone home.

Porter receiving his award for 2nd place.

Incase you live around this area and you're wondering how to hear about these types of events with other home schoolers, just go to this link.

Spelling Bee

Today was the much anticipated spelling bee!! We have been studying our words all year long. I was nervous that the monkeys would forget all the words they learned after I had the baby, but fortunately a friend of mine told me about www.spellingcity.com. You just type in all their spelling words and they can play games with all their words.

Our spelling bee is pretty informal, but a lot of fun. We divide the kids up into their own grade level. They had to spell 5 words correct to win a prize. After all the kids had spelled their 5 words the actual spelling bee started. The kids got one start over and one wrong word do over. Then we take the winners from each grade and have them compete for the grand winner. They get to spell their own words until we get down to the kids who know all their words so no one is getting out, we then bump them up a grade level until we get a winner. It was a lot of fun!!My monkeys won their grade level, then Porter won 1st overall and Bella won 3rd.