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Academic Competitive Opportunities
The KEC sponsors a variety of academic competitions for students who choose to participate. For some of the competitions, students gather over lunch to prepare and practice. For others, KEC staffers work with students during the day, as time allows, or after school. Still other competitions require the student to independently prepare. Learning through participation rather than winning is the goal of these offerings. If a Bright School student or team, however, should happen to win, we all join in celebrating the accomplishment.
In the nine years that the KEC has been a part of Bright School, students at the school have participated in -Odyssey of the Mind -Scripps National Spelling Bee -National Geography Bee -Education League Math Competition -other math competition -writing competitions -Battle of the Books
Spelling Bee The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an annual event for students from 9-14 years of age. During the 2008-2009 school year, thirty-four fourth and fifth grade students participated in our Bright School spelling bee, from which four students advanced to the Homeschool/Private School area bee that was held in February at David Brainerd Christian School. More than fifty students who had won qualifying “bees” like the one at Bright School competed for the opportunity to advance to the Regional Bee, held each March at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. This event is sponsored by the Chattanooga Times Free-Press and runs from October to March.
For additional information, go to www.spellingbee.com. This site has a test for students or parents. Your performance on this online test will indicate how far you would have progressed in the National Spelling Bee! To help a student prepare for the competition, explore the aforementioned link as well as www.myspellit.com. This link is a MUST for students who like word study! It will not be updated with the 2010 official spelling bee word list until October, but many of the same words appear on each year’s list. Also, it will give students a chance to become familiar with spelling patterns that are part familiar words that have non-English origins, which is a life-saver for spellers who are given a totally unfamiliar word.
Math Competition For the first time during the 2009-2010 school year, Bright School 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders participated in an online math competition that included 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teams from schools all over the United States. All students in these grades took from two to four qualifying tests. From these test results, the four students who had earned the highest total scores became our three grade level teams. These twelve students (four per grade) then competed in Regional contests. The Bright School 3rd and 5th grade teams won their divisions and received a plaque.
All three grade-level teams then advanced to the National Competition (the fourth grade competition only have 7 division winners. Our fourth grade team has the next highest cumulative score, so they were the eighth seed in the National Fourth Grade Competition.)
At this level, our total score was based on the top two scoring members of each team. All three teams did well, with the fifth grade team getting second place! For more information about this years contest, go to www.educationleague.com.
Geography Bee This competition is sponsored by National Geographic for students in grades 4-8. The KEC sponsored this competition in 2008 and also offered an after-school enrichment cluster to raise the level of interest in geography. One of our fifth grade students qualified for the state competition. To be successful in an academic competition of this caliber, however, requires personal motivation on the part of participating students as the answers to the questions asked are not likely to be discussed in typical elementary school classrooms. For more information or just to browse a very interesting, informative, and fun website, go to http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographybee/.
Odyssey of the Mind For the past seven years, the KEC has sponsored the involvement of many Bright School students in the Odyssey of the Mind program. One of our teams actually attended the Odyssey of the Mind World competition TWICE! Others of our teams qualified to attend this elite competition but decided to forego that opportunity. None of our teams, however, missed out on working together to find solutions to open-ended questions that at first reading seemed impossible to understand, let alone solve. Participation in Odyssey of the Mind is a rewarding venture that requires a large dose of commitment from both the coaches and the student participants. For more information, go to www.odysseyofthemind.com.
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