Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from Australia recently launched the free online Prime Minister Spelling Bee competition to improve student’s vocabulary and spelling. Last year the competition had a total of 61,000 participants, and Albanese hoped that this year there would be more participants.
“In our ever-evolving* digital world, words are key to opening up opportunity,” Albanese said. “Improving your confidence with words and vocabulary means being able to better express yourself – inside and outside of the classroom.”
The participants are split into three groups, the green group (third-fourth graders), the yellow group (fifth-sixth graders), and the red group (seventh-eighth graders).
Each student is given 30 random words from their selected group and has 25 seconds to type out the answer for each word. The student who types out the most correct words in the fastest time enters the finals.
The winners of this spelling bee competition will win a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, a HarperCollins book pack, and a $1000 scholarship.
Previous winners of the 2022 Prime Minister Spelling Bee Joanne Lee (green group), Ozi Egesi (orange group), and Zachary Cheng (red group) enjoyed the event and the rewards they won. They even tested Albanese’s spelling with words of their own!
“It was a wonderful trip to Canberra, meeting the Prime Minister at Parliament House,” Chang said. “The highlight was meeting the Prime Minister, Mr.Albanese, in person and testing his spelling skill. I still remember asking him to spell ‘magnanimous’, and Mr. Albanese spelled it incorrectly.”
Joanna Lee said she was nervous about meeting the Prime Minister but relaxed after talking with him. She found Albanese to be a funny and friendly person.
“He was very friendly and very easy to talk to – and it was especially funny when we had to ask him to spell a word for us,” Lee said.
Egesi even surprised Albanese when he asked the Prime Minister to spell Bewusstseinslag, the German word for consciousness. Albanese, understandably, didn’t want to try.
Many people support this event, such as the author David Walliams, known for the children’s book The World’s Worst Monsters, who says this can help children “play with words.
.” Teachers can register their students in the competition starting July 24th up to August 18th. The competition will be held from August 28 to September 1. The finals will be on September 6-7.
Sources:
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/anthony-albanese-mocked-by-social-media-and-shadow-education-minister-over-embarrassing-spelling-mistake/news-story/0fd2aec37079ae898cbb281b2d48d558
https://eb18600f7bb2916037f5ee8e636ce199.cdn.bubble.io/f1690137932233x412054573286014340/Kids%20News_%20PM%20backs%20the%202023%20national%20Spelling%20Bee%20_%20KidsNews.pdf
“In our ever-evolving* digital world, words are key to opening up opportunity,” Albanese said. “Improving your confidence with words and vocabulary means being able to better express yourself – inside and outside of the classroom.”
The participants are split into three groups, the green group (third-fourth graders), the yellow group (fifth-sixth graders), and the red group (seventh-eighth graders).
Each student is given 30 random words from their selected group and has 25 seconds to type out the answer for each word. The student who types out the most correct words in the fastest time enters the finals.
The winners of this spelling bee competition will win a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, a HarperCollins book pack, and a $1000 scholarship.
Previous winners of the 2022 Prime Minister Spelling Bee Joanne Lee (green group), Ozi Egesi (orange group), and Zachary Cheng (red group) enjoyed the event and the rewards they won. They even tested Albanese’s spelling with words of their own!
“It was a wonderful trip to Canberra, meeting the Prime Minister at Parliament House,” Chang said. “The highlight was meeting the Prime Minister, Mr.Albanese, in person and testing his spelling skill. I still remember asking him to spell ‘magnanimous’, and Mr. Albanese spelled it incorrectly.”
Joanna Lee said she was nervous about meeting the Prime Minister but relaxed after talking with him. She found Albanese to be a funny and friendly person.
“He was very friendly and very easy to talk to – and it was especially funny when we had to ask him to spell a word for us,” Lee said.
Egesi even surprised Albanese when he asked the Prime Minister to spell Bewusstseinslag, the German word for consciousness. Albanese, understandably, didn’t want to try.
Many people support this event, such as the author David Walliams, known for the children’s book The World’s Worst Monsters, who says this can help children “play with words.
.” Teachers can register their students in the competition starting July 24th up to August 18th. The competition will be held from August 28 to September 1. The finals will be on September 6-7.
Sources:
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/anthony-albanese-mocked-by-social-media-and-shadow-education-minister-over-embarrassing-spelling-mistake/news-story/0fd2aec37079ae898cbb281b2d48d558
https://eb18600f7bb2916037f5ee8e636ce199.cdn.bubble.io/f1690137932233x412054573286014340/Kids%20News_%20PM%20backs%20the%202023%20national%20Spelling%20Bee%20_%20KidsNews.pdf
