Do You Like Random Information?

BeeHive Spelling Question: Why does "cleave" mean both "to divide" and "to stick together"?

BeeHive Geography Question: Which country (and its territories) include the most time zones?


Do you know how big Africa is? On most maps it looks a little larger than North America (Canada, United States, Mexico), but here's a picture that compares the size of the Africa continent to other countries.

BeeHive Question Answers

Spelling: The two CLEAVEs are from entirely different roots. Cleave with meanings relating to splitting and dividing derives from Old English clēofan, meaning "to split." Cleave meaning "to adhere firmly and closely" as in "a family that cleaves to tradition" is from Old English clifian, meaning "to adhere."

Geography: France and its eight territories cover twelve time zones. France covers so many time zones because France has territories all over the world.

What's for Dinner?

BeeHive Spelling Question: What fruit is spelled with two consonants and one vowel, and has a total of six letters?

BeeHive Geography Question: How many oceans are there on Earth? What are their names?


Here's some interesting information you can use for both spelling and geography practice:

https://seedtocrop.net/2018/12/the-history-about-each-vegetable/

Did you ever think about where your vegetables come from? This website has a map that shows you, and a little history of many of the vegetables you can find in your local supermarket.

Now, here's something else to think about: Did the WORD we use for each vegetable come from the same place the vegetable come from? Use your dictionary to find out!


Answers to BeeHive questions:

Spelling: BANANA has only one vowel (A) and two consonants (B and N).

Geography: There are five oceans on Earth: Indian, Pacific, Arctic, Southern, and Atlantic.

It's Fall!

BeeHive Spelling Question: Why do some people call this season Fall and some people call it Autumn?

BeeHive Geography Question: Which parts of the planet experience Fall/Autumn in October?


In autumn fewer hours of sunlight and colder temperatures trigger a chemical change in tree leaves. That’s why they can turn different colors such as red, orange, yellow, and brown. In some areas leaves become so bright they’re visible from outer space.

Some birds really show off their smarts in autumn. During this season certain species store seeds and other food in tree hollows for colder months. To help them remember where they stashed the grub, these birds’ brains actually grow larger!

Fall officially begins on the autumnal equinox (around September 23)—when Earth is positioned in such a way that the sun shines directly on the Equator. In Lithuania, people burn wooden sculptures to celebrate. In Japan, the event is a national holiday in which kids get a vacation day.

The Taurid meteor shower occurs every year in mid-autumn. Meteor showers are mostly made up of tiny dust particles, but this meteor shower also contains a large amount of pebble-size debris. When this debris enters Earth’s atmosphere, it burns up and creates spectacular fireballs.


Answers to Beehive questions:

Spelling: Autumn and fall are used interchangeably as words for the season between summer and winter. Both are used in American and British English, but fall occurs more often in American English. Autumn is considered the more formal name for the season.

The older of the two words is autumn, which first came into English in the 1300s from the Latin word autumnus. (Etymologists aren't sure where the Latin word came from.) It had extensive use right from its first appearance in English writing, and with good reason: the common name for this intermediary season prior to the arrival of autumn was harvest, which was potentially confusing, since harvest can refer to both the time when harvesting crops usually happens (autumn) as well as the actual harvesting of crops (harvest). The word autumn was, then, a big hit.

Names for the season didn't just end with autumn, however. Poets continued to be wowed by the changes autumn brought, and in time, the phrase "the fall of the leaves" came to be associated with the season. This was shortened in the 1600s to fall.

Around this time, England's empire was fast expanding, which meant that the English language was going places. One place it went was to the New World, and it set up shop in North America in the 1600s. As time went on, the English spoken in America and the English spoken in Britain diverged: there wasn't as much contact between the two groups of English speakers. Throw into the mix the independence of the United States, and the fact that the type of English spoken in America became part of our early national identity, and the gulf between the two dialects of English widened.

A handful of words got caught in the identity crisis, and fall was one of them. Both autumn and fall were born in Britain, and both emigrated to America. But autumn was, by far, the more popular term for quite a long time. In fact, the "autumn" sense of fall wasn't even entered into a dictionary until 1755, when Samuel Johnson first entered it in his Dictionary of the English Language.

Geography: The northern hemisphere of Earth (above the equator) experiences Summer in June through August (approximately) and Winter in December through February. Spring is the change from Winter to Summer, and Autumn (Fall) is the change from Summer to Winter. In the southern hemisphere it is the opposite! Summer is December through February, and Autumn marks the change to Winter, which is June through August. This has to to with "axial tilt" - the way the Earth is tilted toward or away from the Sun as it goes through its orbit.

English Is Funny!

• Though
• Plough
• Through
• Cough
• Rough
• Hiccough

Why don’t these words rhyme?

But for some reason, pony and bologna do...

How many words can you find that use OUGH? Can you organize them into lists where OUGH makes the same sound? ("Ought" is another word that uses OUGH, but doesn't end there.)

Ready for Some Bee Practice?

BeeHive Spelling Question: What is a homonym?

BeeHive Geography Question: How many continents are there?

It's never too early to start practicing for the Spelling Bee or Geography Bee! Bees and other quizzes are a fun way to learn new things and improve your skills.

In previous years, the Regional Spelling Bees used a word list with words from several different languages, and the study guide (called "Spell It") included information about some of the patterns used in spelling those words.

For instance, here are some words from Latin:

And here are some of the rules for spelling words that come from Latin:

What countries use languages that come from Latin? These languages are called Romance languages - not because they're especially romantic, but because they originate from Latin, which was the language spoken in ancient Rome!

The most commonly spoken Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. Can you find the countries that speak these languages on a map? (Spanish, Portuguese, and French are tricky - there are quite a few countries where those languages are the main language!)

Answers to BeeHive questions:

Spelling: A homonym is a word that sounds just like another word, but has a different meaning. Sum (the answer to an addition problem) and some (a certain amount) is one example of a homonym pair. (Pair/pear is another example!) How many homonym pairs can you think of?

Geography: There are seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Recently some scientists suggested that New Zealand is actually on a separate continent - and that would make eight!

Today is Climate Strike Day - what does that mean?

BeeHive Geography Question: What is the home country of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old activist who is making waves around the world with her message on Climate Change?

BeeHive Spelling Question: What is the language of origin of the word "environment"? (Where did this word come from and what does it mean?)

Today, school-age kids in the United States (and through the coming week, kids around the world) are striking (staying out of school) to bring attention to the changing climate on Earth.

Here are some things to talk about with your family:

1. What is the difference between climate and weather?

2. Can you find some places on Earth where the climate has changed the landscape from what it was like fifty years ago?

3. What was the last really big hurricane on Earth, and what country suffered the biggest damage from it?

Here is a website about this week's Climate Strike. Can you identify some of the languages that are used on the site?

https://globalclimatestrike.net/

Answers to BeeHive questions:

Geography: Greta Thunberg is from Sweden.

Spelling: "environment" comes from the base "environ" - late 14c. (implied in environing), "to surround, encircle, encompass," from Old French environer "to surround, enclose, encircle," from environ "round about," from en- "in" (en- + viron "a circle, circuit," also used as an adverb, from virer "to turn".

It's the Start of Bee Season!

Hello Bee Hivers!

I've created this blog for kids interested in participating in the homeschool Spelling Bee and/or GeoBee. Follow along for tips on being a good contestant and having fun with Bees, or just for fun, games, and fascinating information on language and geography / current events..

A little about myself: I'm a homeschooling mom whose homeschoolers are grown now, but I'm still very active in the homeschooling community in and around Portland, Oregon.

I became interested in the Scripps National Spelling Bee when our homeschool group, Village Home, was invited to send a representative to the regional Bee in Portland, in 2006. My daughter Shaina was excited about this idea, so we started a Spelling club and held a Homeschool Bee that year. Shaina won that Bee, then won the Regional Bee, and was off to Washington DC to compete in the national Bee! She didn't win, but it was an amazing experience. Shaina went on to compete again the following year - and achieve National Semifinalist status!

Since then I've continued to work with middle-school kids in preparation for the National Spelling Bee and the National Geographic GeoBee, and host the homeschool Bees at Village Home. Every year is a new adventure, and we've sent quite a few kids to the National competition!

I'm looking forward to hosting this year's Bees! They'll be held at Village Home in January - stay tuned for dates and registration information.

To get you started, here are some great reading list suggestions from the National Spelling Bee:

Each book on the 2020 Great Words, Great Works reading list is given a "Bee"rating based on the challenge the book will likely provide to the reader. Books rated "One Bee" are great for emerging readers, and the level of challenge progresses through "Two Bee" and "Three Bee." The Scripps National Spelling Bee selects Great Words, Great Works titles annually for the richness of their vocabulary and for their stories' ability to spark the intellect and the imagination. All words on the 2020 School Spelling Bee Study List may be found in the pages of these books. Happy reading! 

ONE BEE
• Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover by Markus Motum
• Houndsley and Catina by James Howe
• Zoey and Sassafras: Monsters and Mold by Asia Citro
• Fergus and Zeke at the Science Fair by Kate Messner
• The Sandwich Thief by André Marois
• The Magician’s Hat by Malcolm Mitchell

TWO BEE
• The Big, Bold, Adventurous Life of Lavinia Warren by Elizabeth Raum
• When the Sky Breaks: Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and the Worst Weather in the World by Simon Winchester
• Ava and Pip by Carol Weston
• Winterhouse by Ben Guterson
• Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo
• Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome

THREE BEE 
• Racing Manhattan by Terence Blacker
• This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce
• The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor
• The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani
• The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Rivalry, Adventure, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Young Readers Edition) by Sam Kean
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older