Take part in the third annual Paris Spelling Bee! This community wide event is open to children from CE2-4eme (3rd through 8th grade) who participate in the preliminary written round on Saturday April 10th.  Finalists from the preliminaries will move on to the May 30th Finals, an oral competition. There will be  a mock /practice session on Sunday May 9th for the finalists. Registration, by mail, opens on 25 January and ends on 22 March. The Spelling Bee organizers will be at the American Library as part of their Open House on Saturday March 13th, 14h00-18h00, to answer your questions and take registration forms. You’ll need to bring the registration payment for the bee (see “upcoming events” for details) to complete the process.

The Paris Spelling Bee is modeled after bees held by schools at the local, state and national level in the United States. Last year 25 finalists from 18 different schools in the Paris region competed in the 2nd annual Paris Spelling Bee at the American Library in Paris.

During the Preliminary and Final competition, children will be grouped into two categories:
The Gazelles — CE2-CM2 (3rd grade through 5th grade);
and The Cheetahs — 6eme through 4eme (6th grade through 8th grade).

Study Word List for the April 10th preliminary written round, for registered participants, has now been posted under “Word List,” tab. There are 200 words for the Gazelles and 205 words for the Cheetahs to study from. The list was last updated on March 11th. There will be 25 words given to each group on the day of the preliminary written round.

Suggested material:
We have enjoyed and benefited from the following resources: How to Spell Like a Champ, a book that includes a 75-minute interactive audio CD following a child from a classroom bee to the finals. Spellbound: an award-winning documentary, which follows eight American spellers from their regional bees through to the conclusion of the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC; Akeelah and the Bee: a motion picture about a young girl from South Los Angeles who tries to make it to the National Spelling Bee. Other useful links your children, students and teachers might enjoy are:  Welcome to the Spelling Bee Hive!; The Times Spelling Bee/UK; Canwest Canspell/Canada (teachers); Canwest Canspell/ Canada (students); Denver Public Schools Semantics/US and word games at Merriam-Webster online and Funbrain.com’s spellcheck.

The Paris Spelling Bee is organized by Gifted in France in collaboration with the American Library in Paris.

During the first two years, children registered according to their ages. This year however, registration is according to the participant’s current academic year/or grade.

We are still searching high and low for dedicated volunteers as
well as donors who can contribute towards the purchase of trophies, rental of venue for the preliminary, prizes etc.

If you would like to help us with prizes, become our cosponsors, or extend your help with carrying out the logistics for this event, please contact parisfrancespellingbee@gmail.com .

Thank you for your interest and support!

The Bee Team

(updated March 11, 2010)