January 13, 2016, 10 AM, Birmingham district spelling bee, Shades Mountain Independent Church  Birmingham registration:  Contact Melissa Smith    spellingbee@bellsouth.net  Homeschool families who want to participate in one of the district spelling bees need to register through Learning at Home in order for your students to be able to participate in a District Spelling Bee. This is a requirement by the organization that sponsors the national spelling bee. If you have not yet registered your speller(s), please do so now! Registering with Learning at Home now gives your student more time to study the materials so that they are prepared for their District Bee. Laura Ann will send these materials once you are registered! The deadline for Learning at Home registration for $8 is December 17. Late registration will be $10, and “at-the-door” registration on the day of a District Bee will be $15. Instructions for registering are below. You may begin registering for the district bees that are scheduled! Please do so ASAP. To register for a specific bee, please contact the person listed above.  Please provide these ladies with your speller(s) name(s), the name of the person that will be driving them to the bee, and a number where that person can be reached in case your spellers haven’t arrived at the time of the bee.

Join other homeschoolers in wintry fun!  Visit Birmingham Homeschoolers Community for more information.

Join us for perhaps the largest valentine swap in the world!  (And…we are not exaggerating) Get creative with your valentine boxes.  There will be prizes awarded for the most creative ones! Bring a snack and drink to share.  Also, prepare at least 50 valentines to deliver!  (If you want to create more, that’s fine.  We’ve found that 50 is about right to have plenty to share.)

Join us for a traditional Easter egg hunt as well as spring fun! Bring plastic eggs(with or without goodies inside) and baskets for the egg hunt, and bring a spring treat/drink to share. Teens and older students can help with egg hiding if they prefer. Dads often join us on this day too! Bring kites and sport equipment for free time. Hopefully, we will have beautiful weather, but we will meet rain or shine and hide eggs under the pavilion if needed! For those who haven’t joined us in the past, we do hide tickets in eggs to redeem for prizes after the egg hunt.  And here is our normal schedule: 1-1:30pm – Families arrive and drop off eggs at designated area. 1:30-2pm –  Teens/Dads hide eggs at a designated location while children play or eat. 2pm –  We gather in grade level groupings for the egg hunt, with preschool in front, then grades K-2, and grades 3-6 in back.  We usually cross the parking lot with our students to access the egg hunt area. After the egg hunt, students look through their collected eggs for tickets and goodies.  Empty eggs can be donated to BHC for use in the next year’s hunt, or you can take your collections home.  The tickets are numbered, and students will return to the pavilion with their tickets to claim their prizes. This is a monthly BHC group event, and we hope you will come and meet new friends.