The month of winnings

Looks like Akank is set to complete the school year in style. She won a few more certificates this week. They were for some inter grade contests held in November last year. She sang Adam Lambert’s version of Mad World and was judged the best in Western music. She played ‘ These are a few of my favorite things and Thema’ on the keyboard for the instrumental music contest and stood second; the third certificate was a third place in extempore where she was asked to speak about a favourite sport activity and she chose to talk about swimming.

Now that she has raised the bar, with her winnings in sports and extra curricular activities, we are expectantly waiting for her to complete her academic year with fantastic results in her subjects too.

We keep our fingers crossed.

 

You win some, you lose some.

Akank participated with great fervor in the annual sports event at school, this year too. This was her first experience being a part of the school march past group.That done, she took part in the 100m, 200m and the relay event. Just before the 200m dash, which was the first event of the afternoon, Akank was in two minds about participating. During the heats, she had realized that she was not able to run the entire distance without tiring out. In spite of that, she had made it to the final four participants.  When she asked me for a vote, I told her to give it a shot. The other three athletes turned out to be swifter. She was in tears at losing.

I encouraged her to believe that she was probably cut to run the 100m dash better.  After a bit of talking to, she began to calm down. She was keen to win the 100m dash. Unfortunately for Akank, the participants of the 100m dash event turned out to be nifty too!

I was now beginning to feel very uncomfortable with what I had to handle at the end of the day! No amount of pep talk about ‘ winning is not important, participating is’ was going to help. The last event was the 4 x100m relay. I spent a few minutes with the team before the event. I asked Akank to have fun and do her best with the team. Even though they were the last to start the race , they finished third, thanks to some super sprinting between them!

I said a small prayer thanking my savior for saving me from the teary eyed scene that I was preparing myself for later that evening. The icing on the cake was when she won another cup for being in the Rugby team that won the Runner up award.

She was in a happy mood at the end of the day, despite the lost races. She agreed to go to a mini celebration over burgers and salsa wraps at McDonald’s. I also got her a much awaited 4th book by Stephanie Meyers’ – Breaking Dawn.

 

Splash in the pool

Akank has wanted to swim competitively provided the pool was familiar and that she had a big chance of winning. When the swimming coach from the gym called to tell us of a swimming competition to coincide with the Christmas celebrations at the gym this week, the two conditions were met. There were not too many participants in her age group and the pool was familiar! Akank competed today.

Surfacing after 3 laps of freestyle

Even though she has not been regular with her pool lessons, she is a fairly good swimmer and did well. The coach has made a note of her timings for both free style and back stroke. We will know at the end of the day if she qualified for one of the prizes.

Victory a la Olympic style!

Akank’s school allows children who win prizes outside of school to bring their laurels (and officially brag about it) to the common assembly that is held once a month. Akank told me that she had forewarned her class teacher that she was due to participate in the swimming competitions this weekend and that she may have to bring her prize to show it to the class at school on the day of common assembly.

After the event. Smug and confident!

Something about counting chickens before they hatch comes to mind. Or am I supposed to encourage her positive attitude?

 

Are you smarter than a 5th Grader?

Akank came back mighty disappointed after her inter school science talent (ordeal) test. And rightfully so. Of the hundred questions that were asked, eighty percent was out of scope. I challenge you to find a fifth grader who  will know of velocity, radiation,pH values, plane mirrors, single celled organisms,energy conversion, skeletal system,endocrine glands, striated muscles of the alimentary canal, chemical representations of combustion, of wedges, pulleys and wheel and axles, of enzymes and amino acids. And there was another section in Math that asked her about parallelograms,isosceles triangles,pyramids, cuboids, trapezoids and  conversions.

I tried attempting some questions and with my rusty recall of facts in science and rustier math, I was able to answer about  seventeen questions and then I ran out of steam. The test was a good way to discourage fifth graders of dreaming big. Thankfully I had asked Akank to give it a go and have fun and she knew that we were not expecting any ranks! So she came back home less hassled than children whose parents who spent time preparing them to be winners.

After the ordeal, I muttered under my breath that I was going to talk to the organizers and explain how the difficulty levels were way too high when Akank said , ” Sue them ma. Sew them into small pieces!’

There again presented another opportunity for me to tell Akank that Sue was not the same as Sew which was pronounced ” so”. Thankfully the focus turned to language proficiency which is an alley that I am comfortable treading where I am sure not to bump into any unsuspecting parallelograms!

 

Algebric expressions!

Akank has signed up for an inter school math and science talent test. When I looked up the syllabus I found that it included many concepts that she has not been taught but will learn this year. So I decided to teach her a few concepts in Math. I explained that algebra was math with numbers and letters and showed her a few examples. In one I had marked a value for ” x ” and in another a value for ” y “. In the third and unrelated example, I showed her an equation that read like this ” 7 + x = ? “. Before I could explain the arithmetic, Akank had an answer! She had replaced the value of  x from the first example and smartly summed up the values!

She doesn’t know algebra gave me the heebie jeebies at school!