Posted on 05/31/2006 11:09:43 AM PDT by politicket
The National Spelling Bee began its first rounds today. All of the action can be followed at: www.spellingbee.com.
Also, the championship rounds will be broadcast live on ABC (for the first time) beginning at 8PM EST Thursday evening.
I'm placing my guess on Speller #238, Samir Patel, from Fort Worth, Texas. He will be worth the price of admission for you to watch tomorrow evening. He was HILARIOUS last year when we participated in the Bee!
We're Spelling Bee'ers, also. 2001.
You're right, it was lots of fun.
Make sure you get the right movie (Spellbound). There are two out there by the same name.
Something like that actually happened in a Regional Bee we participated in and the girl was let back in and went on to Washington. It made us sick. It was so unfair to the kid who should have gone, whoever that was who should have won.
Latin and Greek are making a comeback thanks to a Classical Chrisitan Education movement within the homeschool movement... i started teaching Latin to 14 students last August... ages 5-14... just this week i've been reading the books, Latin Centered Curriculum by Drew Campbell and Norms and Nobility by David Hicks... another book on the subject of classical languages is Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons... i've begun teaching myself New Testament Greek just a few weeks ago... i want to begin teaching my sons Greek in a couple of years...
i HATE that commercial for that very reason... i thought that they should have made the girl think about the spelling to herself--say it in her head--and not out loud until the little bee reminds her, and she spells it correctly...
Was....and now down to 7.
Gee spelling 5 letter words of everyday speech is tough.
These kids are awesome.
Ultimate would be having a autistic or Cerebral Palsy babe on outspelling all....
I'm glad I searched for this thread. I had that exact same idea. I'm not the only one!
Congratulations to Ms Close. I would never in my whole life have handled those words.
It's a piece of breakfast cereal, isn't it?
VDK: How about just cheering AMERICAN kids to do their best instead of making this a "Angelic, genius home school kids against the evil, immoral, retarded, brainwashed government school kids" P*ssing match?
American Quilter is right. About 10% of the participants every year are homeschoolers and if you look at the placements over the years, they have taken far more than 10% of the top places, first included. Facts are facts.
Nothing AQ said could even lend itself to your snarky interpretation. If you don't like that homeschoolers outperform the public/private school kids, that's too bad. You need to get a grip.
Your exchange was interesting to me and I looked for rules for deaf competitors with no success. I did see a Chicago Deaf Spelling Bee in which the contestants were given the word in sign language and then had to spell the word with finger spelling... As for some of the words used in the bees I don't know if they would really have a sign language equivalent except through finger spelling.
The only thing I can think of would be to give the deaf students the phonetic spelling of a word on paper and ask them for the correct spelling? You raise an interesting question coloradan. (o:
The only reason that I know about deaf kids is that a person in California asked me the same question about a year ago and I referred them to the offices of the National Spelling Bee. They later got back to me and said that a deaf person could compete, but they didn't fill in details as to how that would be accomplished.
Ursprache!
That's wonderful. Glad to hear that. Perhaps Latin can be brought back from the dead. It truly is useful - and I found it easy, for some reason.
Greek, on the other hand, is all Greek to me - although I do well in Greco root words and derivatives. Both of them help in learning to read the Romance languages. Unfortunately for me, I found I didn't have a knack for any other languages and I envy those who do.
I was really surprised at the number of German words used in the Bee as if they are English. I know Old English was closely related to German, but words like "weltschmerz" seemed like they were stretching things a bit. I hate to say it, but I wasn't all that thrilled with the pronouncer, either.
Good for you! I tell my children, especially ds (gifted) that intelligence is a gift and I would be more proud of a disabled child (physically or mentally) that put 100%+ effort into something and received a D than of a gifted child with a B that only put in a low effort. Intelligence is a gift, ambition requires inner strength. That is one thing I am glad with the public schools - for the most part it is still called 'gifted'.
it's still called "gifted" in homeschool circles too... i think there is some confusion within homeschool circles, however... because many homeschoolers are getting top-notch educations, some parents might confuse being highly educated with being gifted...
we have one son who we truly believe to be gifted... he fits all the criteria... we have another son who is very bright, he is intelligent, and he is very hardworking... he's truly earned each of his accomplishments... he's far above grade level... but i would not say that he is gifted... he may be an accelerated learner... my husband and i have worked very hard with him... i worry less about him than about our gifted son who seems to have things come much too easily... although i am happy to say he has yet to display any cockiness about his giftedness... i don't think he even realize it at this point...
I'm all for the right to homeschool. I think it is great if parents can do it. but the broad-brush vitriol directed at public schools and public school students on these threads leaves a bad impression. There are good students and good teachers in the public schools too and all who achieve should be applauded. All the kids who participated should be applauded.
Colonel Kangaroo: I think it is great if parents can do it. but the broad-brush vitriol directed at public schools and public school students on these threads leaves a bad impression.
I understand that but there was nothing in post #11 by American Quilter that would even have lent itself to that kind of attitude. I thought the nasty remarks were reading way too much into what was said. AQ's impression is correct and easily backed up with facts but there was nothing in that post that was a slur against public school teachers or public school students. It was just an observation.
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