Registration is Open for the 2012 LIFE of Tampa Spelling Bee!

Registration is open through January 16 for the 2012 LIFE of Tampa Spelling Bee

Students in the  eighth grade or below, in the Hillsborough, Hernando,  Pasco and Pinellas County areas are invited to join in our  2012 local Spelling Bee. The Bee will be held January 28th, starting at 1pm with a mini-Bee for 5-7 yr olds, at the Austin Davis Public Library at 17808 Wayne Road, off Gunn Hwy. in Odessa, FL.

The winner of  the LIFE of Tampa Spelling Bee will go on to compete in the 2012 Tampa  Bay Area Regional Spelling Bee in March, at Admiral Farragut Academy on March 3rd, 2012. Winner of the Regional Spelling Bee may go on to compete at the Scripps   National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C..  Last year's LIFE of Tampa Bee winner, Tommy Foster, was also the winner of the Regional Bee and went on to compete at the national Scripps Spelling Bee earlier this year.  

Although we're holding a short mini-Bee for 5-7 year olds at 1pm, with the winner of that Bee participating in the main Bee at 1:45pm, LIFE of Tampa Spelling Bee participants will not be divided into  grade or age levels, but will compete together, in the style of the  regional competition in March.  There is no minimum grade level for  participation.  


The purpose of the Bee is to have fun while helping youth improve their  spelling, increase their vocabularies, and improve their English usage  skills in a way that will serve them a life time!  The event is intended  to encourage and celebrate academic excellence in the Tampa Bay area.

A donation of $5 per participant is requested at the time of registration, to help defray associated Bee costs. Register at our EventBrite page:

In addition to winning a spot at the Regional Bee in March, our LIFE of Tampa winner will also win a free World Language course from Middlebury Interactive Languages. Our event champion will win one free semester of the award-winning powerspeaK¹² online world          language courses, which feature fun age-specific activities and games to          help students become proficient in a second language. The program includes reading, writing, speaking and cultural          lessons, which are being used by 50,000 students nationwide. Champions can choose from multiple level courses in          Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, German and Latin. These self-paced courses help students with memory and          creative thinking. Learn more about the courses at powerspeak.com.

Our runner up will win a free one-year subscription to Britannica        Online for Kids . The free subscription includes unlimited access to two student-appropriate encyclopædias, atlas, dictionary         and thesaurus, and more, including:

• More than 17,511 articles,
• Learning Activities for English & Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Sciences
• Step-by-step Research Guides
• An updated world atlas, thousands of images and videos.
• An online student dictionary and student thesaurus, and thousands of articles from 403         respected magazines and journals.
• Developed for students age 8 and up

Encyclopædia Britannica is also offering a 50% discount to the kids.britannica.com website for all         participants in the Bee, or to offer to other interested parties in conjunction with the 2012 Scripps National     Spelling Bee.

So register soon, and enjoy these great resources to start brushing up on your Spelling Bee skills!

• Scripps "Spell It!"study site
• Merriam Webster's Word Central and Webster Online
• Vocabulary and Spelling City
• The Resource Room: Reading and Spelling
• and this great list of Spelling Resources

Happy Spelling!