So for those of you that don't know what it is, I'll try to explain. It's like a sports meet where one school is against another school, only because it's a 'bowl' it's a bunch of schools in the district against each other. Our school had 4 teams for the 3rd/4th grades. (We had some teams represent the 5th/6th graders last week, but since my kid didn't participate - I had nothing to do with that...) So instead of playing some sort of sport, they are asked questions of the mind. This year was Science and I heard that next year may be Classic Literature or something along those lines. Hope Shaylyn chooses to participate again.
So last Saturday morning found us getting up around 8, so that we could be to the school that was hosting the Knowledge Bowl by 9:30. Thankfully, Tanis graciously offered to babysit so that Eric and I could go and just support Shaylyn without needing to wrangle other children. There were many times that morning when I was thankful we didn't have other children with us.
Our school had 3 or 4 teams with 4 kids each. Each individual team was set to square off with 4 other teams from different schools. The matches consisted of I 'think' 14 questions. Never having been to a Knowledge Bowl I wasn't sure what to expect.
We each shuffled into our appointed rooms and the games began. One question is read to both teams and whichever teams answers correctly gets a chance to gain extra points by answering a bonus question. Our team did awesome the first two games and came away champs. The first game was fairly close, but they pulled it off. The second game they won quite easily. Then came the 3rd and 4th games and we knew we were in trouble. The last game was the worst and you could tell that each of these kids had started to give up. Shaylyn started getting frustrated and was on the verge of tears, but I was very proud of her when she overcame her emotions and got her head back in the game.
These kids surprised me with what they knew and some things I didn't even know. Our neighbor kid (kid on the very left, who belongs to my wonderful friend, Catey) is very intelligent and it was fun to see that side of him because I don't get that chance. Shaylyn also surprised me. (I don't know why, she's got a brain like her Dad's...) She made a few mistakes by not listening to the full question before answering and then getting it wrong because she didn't wait for the full question, but overall I was very impressed.
I was worried that it would be a boring day for me and I was pleasantly surprised. The matches went quickly and it was over before I knew it.
I am thankful for the time the teachers took to spend 2 days a week helping these kids out and I know that Shaylyn really enjoyed it and was talking about doing it again next year.
P.S. I'm sure this post was probably everywhere....I wasn't sure how to word a lot of it and there were things I wanted to say that probably didn't come across well. Forgive me - I'm kinda out of it lately!
This sounds a lot like the Geography Bowl (was that what it was called??) that our friends participated in in jr. high. I did not because I didn't think I was smart enough. :( Congratulations to Shaylyn for not giving up!!!
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