spelling bee prep materials that won't break the bank?

[LucyStoner]

My older son has qualified for the regional bee here. It's his first year. He is fluent with the spell it booklet words. Does anyone have ideas for additional study resources which are low cost or free?

 

Obviously he reads a lot and plays many word games. I would like to help him study the best we can with a modest budget.

[Dmmetler]

Congratulations (My DD is jealous-our homeschool preliminary won't let younger kids do the bee that qualifies for the regionals-she's won her age group each year and gets more annoyed every year).

 

Right now, the World Education Games is open for practice, and if you did the 14+ words, that would probably be good practice-and on the iPad app, you can pick any level (on the website, it limits the kids to their age group, and the 8-10 yr old words wouldn't be anywhere near spelling bee level).

[TechWife]

Have you been to the Scripps National Spelling Bee site? They have 1150 words there.

[Crimson Wife]

Hexco Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement. Not free but not super-expensive either.

[LucyStoner]

Have you been to the Scripps National Spelling Bee site? They have 1150 words there.

 

Those are are words in this year's Spell It booklet so yeah, we have them. It is a great resource link. :)

[LucyStoner]

Hexco Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement. Not free but not super-expensive either.

 

How comprehensive is it? I am thinking I will order that this weekend.

[Crimson Wife]

There are something like 4500 words. For a regional bee, I would start with the Hexco added words after the Spell-It list and then after those have been learned, work on the added words for school bees.

[LucyStoner]

start with the Hexco added words after the Spell-It list

 

Are these the ones in the Valerie's Guide? Or something else? Pardon my ignorance, I am a spelling bee newbie. :) Thanks.

[Crimson Wife]

Yes, in the Valerie's book. My DD didn't win the HS bee this year but the 3 kids who placed ahead of her were older so she's hoping to move up next year. Good luck to your DS!

[ElizabethB]

There are a lot of language specific things out there that might be helpful. French words are challenging for me. Here is a chart from my phonics lesson 27, it has some information on spelling by language of origin. Watching that lesson might help, too. One of the girls who went to the regional bee here found that German words were her nemesis. She had studied French, but not German.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/OriginSlides.pdf

[Belacqua]

How to Spell Like a Champ is good in that it offers some techniques as well as word lists. My library carries it, so it might be worth a look.

[LucyStoner]

How to Spell Like a Champ is good in that it offers some techniques as well as word lists. My library carries it, so it might be worth a look.

 

 

Thanks. I had put some spelling books on hold for him but didn't see this one on my search. They don't have it at the city system but I found it at the county library. I wouldn't have looked without your post.

[Sarah CB]

My older son has qualified for the regional bee here. It's his first year. He is fluent with the spell it booklet words. Does anyone have ideas for additional study resources which are low cost or free?

 

Obviously he reads a lot and plays many word games. I would like to help him study the best we can with a modest budget.

 

Fantastic! My daughter came third at the regionals three years in a row. We used a bunch of resources from Hexco, but I would say that the buffer words are the most important. At our regionals, they would go through the Spell-It book (where about 75% of kids would end up spelling something wrong) and then they would go off-list. There would be words that were far easier than the difficult words on the Spell-It list and far easier than any we studied with the Hexco products. Words like rhetoric. One year we used the R&S grade 7 spelling book as part of our studying.

 

Studying past Spell-its is a good idea as well because they do recycle back a lot of those words.

[LucyStoner]

 

then they would go off-list. There would be words that were far easier than the difficult words on the Spell-It list and far easier than any we studied with the Hexco products.

 

Studying past Spell-its is a good idea as well because they do recycle back a lot of those words.

 

That happened at the "school" bee. It was down to 5 students for awhile and then 3 dropped off fairly quickly and then my son and another boy went awhile, spelling trickier and trickier words and then boom, the list was exhausted and the other list from Scripps went to stuff like "breakfast". I could see my son thinking "what?!" The other student tripped up on a word and then my son won on warranty. He felt that was a bit anti-climatic.

 

All of the kids that made it to the final 5 were grades 3-5. The middle schoolers were out before that.