Are You Smarter Than a 4th Grader?

Umm, NOPE!  Karson is on Plano's Quick Recall team this year.  I honestly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into by committing to this.  Last year Karson was selected to be on the academic team in the area of Language Arts.  The focus was on the book "Bridge to Teribithia", and she had to study a wide variety of materials like Newberry and Caldecott Medal winners, literature genres, vocabulary words, grammar, and parts of speech.  It was small potatoes compared to this year.  She qualified for Language Arts again, along with Arts and Humanities and Quick Recall.  Once I saw the practice schedule, I knew she couldn't commit to it all--lots of morning practices and loads of material.  She decided to do Quick Recall and Arts and Humanities this year.  She has three practices a week:  Monday morning at 7:15, Tuesday morning at 7:30 and Thursday after school 'til 4:30.  She's one busy gal!  

She had her first match at Lost River on Thursday.  I had no idea what to expect.  Practices started about two weeks ago.  One of our more experienced mom's took upon herself to copy study packets for all the kids covering almost all of the subject areas.  I've tried to get Karson to study at least 10 minutes each day which is usually around 7:50-8:00 before school (on days she doesn't has practice).  We're going to have to get some more study time in though because I felt like we were on Jeopardy Thursday.  The questions were so random, wordy, specific--I don't think 10 minutes of daily study will cut it.  I may pick up some of those Brain Quest cards or the iPad app. for extra study.

Ms. Tinsley and Ms. Strode getting the team fired up!

The 5th graders played the first half of the match and did very well, winning both rounds.

The coaches made some substitutions for the second half of the match including some of the 4th graders.  They didn't do as well as the 5th grade but still pulled out wins for the team.

I think Karson's highlight of the afternoon was being with her best friends, Jameson and Nathan.  We still have about eight more matches at different schools.  I hope the kids continue to improve and STUDY!