National Spelling Bee Enrollment Commences Today
Enrollment for the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee commenced today and will run through until October 17, 2011. If you have aspirations that include making it to Washington in May 2012, then ensure your school plans to register. More information is available here.
Angie Sage’s Flyte – Spelling Word List
Following hot on the heels of the list of spelling words found in Angie Sage’s book Physik, here is a list of words I collected when reading through the second book in the Septimus Heap series, Flyte. There are 160 words in this list and they might be suitable for school spelling bees for grades [...]
Angie Sage’s Physik – Spelling Word List
This is a list of spelling words from British author Angie Sage’s book Physik. I collected the words as I read through the book. (Physik is the third in a series of books featuring Septimus Heap, and we highly recommend the books!) There are 200 words in this list and they might be suitable for [...]
James Maguire’s American Bee – Word List Part Two, Plus Full List
When reading James Maguire’s excellent book, I decided to compile a list of words mentioned within as words asked at spelling bees. I posted the first part of the word list last week. This post contains the 316 words that comprise the second part of the list, and appeared in the second half of the book.1 [...]
-phagous combining form
Last night, we ran across several challenging and interesting words as we pored over a word list. One was xylophagous so we took the opportunity to break down the word and explore its combining forms in a little more detail. xylophagous combines xyl- and -phagous. xyl- we have run across before in at least one [...]
lig·ni·per·dous
Recently, we ran across this great word while perusing a spelling word list and stumbled over its meaning. The ligni- prefix we correctly guessed referred to wood, from the Latin lignum. However, we floundered somewhat with the middle part of the word. The only related word we could think of was perdition, which we thought [...]
James Maguire’s American Bee – Word List, Part One
When reading Maguire’s excellent book, I decided to compile a list of words mentioned within as words asked at spelling bees. Below is the list of words I ran across in the first half of the book.1 The book recounts class, district, regional, state and, of course, the national bee so the words cover the entire [...]
quix·ot·ic
Word of the Day #2: quixotic It was an infernally hot afternoon, above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and we spent much of it at repose, beneath the whir of the ceiling fan. Speller Primus perused a copy of The Blue Lotus1, a comic book in Hergé‘s classic series, The Adventures of Tintin. And then, “Who’s Don [...]
weiss·nicht·wo
Word of the Day #1: Weissnichtwo I love this word! Admittedly, not an easy word to slip into everyday discourse, but a delight to say with its staccato of shortening syllables. English speakers seeing weissnichtwo for the first time invariably wrestle with its pronunciation. The temptation to anglicize the last three letters seems too great [...]