A local group uses word lists found on their site: https://sites.google.com/site/homeschoolspellingbee/ They are split into 3 levels and 8 grades.

:party: That gives me a huge smile, and some hope for my own daughter. Aphrodite, you go girl! :lol:

I ran our local HS group's spelling bee last year. Okay, so I co-ran it. Really, it wasn't that much work. (It was such a good experience, that we are both running it again this year!) We had to register with Scripps, by paying $$ and giving them an address, send out the practice lists (which we hope to do much earlier this year), find a location, post in our group's forums to recruit kids, find people (not a relative of a participating child) to be the announcer and judges, set up the room, and clean up. You do have a minimum number of kids that need to participate, I think it is 10. Our group had 250 families and we barely made it (yes, that is sad). You can find more information at http://www.spellingbee.com if you haven't already been there. There is even more information, including how to's on running a smooth class and local spelling bee once your group is registered (registration for 2012-13 won't begin until late August). Our HS group had previously registered, so I am not sure if there is any additional work needed to register a new group. Let me know if you have any other questions! :auto: (smiley in car for my 3 year old son who is looking over my shoulder)

:grouphug: I told my DH a few weeks ago that I believe our DS will be reading chapter books before he is potty trained. (Semi-) glad to know we are in good company! Oh well, good thing he doesn't actually need the Letter-of-the-Week Preschool (for ages 3 and 4) this fall.

How about an end of the school year celebratory dinner (near end of PS school year), followed a beginning of the school year celebratory dessert? :drool5:

It is too late this year (they took much of the information down from the website), but Scripp's site: spellingbee.com has a way to check if your school is enrolled. You can look up schools/organizations by zip code. I just entered all of the zip codes near me to see who was listed and which of those organizations was signed up. Don't wait until the deadline is near, contact the organizations early in the school year. I know we would have been grateful to have an extra participant, as you need a minimum of 10 in the competition for anyone to move on here in central Oklahoma. dmmetler, did you see?!? A 6 year old is going to the National Spelling Bee!!! At least some places in the country don't have artificial minimum ages for their competition!

Two things: 1) Beast Academy has a Facebook page. 2) Posted yesterday: "Books 3A and 3B have been sent to the printer. They'll be available in early-mid March!" That is all.

My dd is also a natural speller, who gets frustrated when she misses words. We only do spelling when she wants to, which is almost daily. So, I am quite disappointed in the regional sponsor of the spelling bee who is restricting it to a minimum of a 4th grader. Sigh. Well, she can "compete" in the local bee, but not advance to the regional if she were to somehow win. It is still a learning experience. As for other academic competitions... National Math Bee http://www.nationalmathbee.org/ is taking "a sabbatical", but may be back for Fall 2012. National Geographic Bee http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee/ Oh forget it, Hoagie's has a more complete list. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/contests.htm Most of these are geared more toward older elementary/middle school, but younger kids can participate in most of them (unless certain regional organizers.....nevermind) :glare: :)

My daughter has a similar need for accuracy! Of course, so do I... Why is it that we can't just ask kids how old they are, or can't process the answer unless we also know the school grade? Even when someone asks me, "how old were you when..." questions, I first think, "well, I was in __ grade, so I was ...<calculating>... # years old." Yeah, I think we are all a bit odd. :lol:

Being the math nerd that I am, I had to go look. I started out thinking, okay, they are just trying to combat grade inflation. I ended up thinking, wow, I didn't think my headache could get that much worse! We need an exploding head smiley! Hey, how about the schools that add 3 or 5 points to the "numerical grade" for honors classes and 5 or 8 points for AP/IB/Dual? Or colleges that just recalculate GPA based on a flat 4.0 scale from the letter grades on the transcript? I have been at schools (as teacher or student) with pretty much all of the grading policies listed here, and it doesn't seem to matter. The teachers have come up with algorithms to give the students the grades they feel they should get.

Sign me up!!! :lol:

I eagerly await this!!! :banghead:

Encyclopedia Brown. Nancy Drew. Her dad recently picked up Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (a graphic novel about being smart and liking science), and she LOVED that, but I can't find anything else like it.

Infinity - Infinity is one of the "indeterminate forms". They are most commonly used in the study of limits in Calculus. We just don't know enough to determine what it equals, hence, "indeterminate". :001_smile:

That's what I thought, too. However, with a little playing around, I got into their site. I think they missed some redirecting code or something, to get to their real/new home page. http://www.startwrite.com/index.php I am still trying to decide if this is something I would stick with doing.