Jaco has been one busy 7th grader! He competed with a team in an area scavenger hunt, started Spanish at the high school, read lots of books and participated in OBOB (Oregon Battle Of the Books), and was quizzed while playing in a brain bowl tournament.
The last part of January, Jaco was chosen to be a part of a team for a huge scavenger hunt. It was not your typical hunt. The local university sponsors a hunt for all the middle schools in the area. They are given a list of items to find; some physical you-can-hold-in-your-hand items and others were questions that had to be researched and figured out. At first I was not really excited about helping the kids but I will admit, I got caught up in the excitement of it all and made my share of phone calls and drove kids around to find proof for why our teams answer was correct. One of the items we had to find was an original in the box pet rock! One of the kids found one at an antique store 45 minutes north of us. I was able to get a friend of mine to go get it for us and then Justin and Jake went to get it from them. Because of our pet rock and excellent answers our kids researched and answered, our team won! It was so exciting and fun! The kids were amazing and I was happy to help bring home the trophy.
On February 3rd, Jaco finally was able to start taking Spanish II at the high school. When they told him in November that it was a possiblilty, he was ready to start the next day. He had to take multiple tests before they could approve the transfer but as we knew he would, he tested high and was approved! It was hard to leave my "little" guy at the huge school but his excitement was contagious. On his first day, he aced the first assignment and ended up tutoring the high school kids. He loved every minute of it!
OBOB is a competition where kids read a certain list of
books as a team, then compete against other teams answering questions
about the books read. Jaco's team didn't make it past the school level
but he had fun and read some good books in the process!
Finally, Jaco had a blast being quized while participating with a team in a brain bowl question. Trivial Pursuit meets Jeapordy without having to form the answer as a question. All kinds of random trivia questions from math to history to book facts. It was amazing to see these kids answer some of the most random questions! Jaco's team played hard but did not go past the local level.
It has been fun watching my handsome boy grow and learn and stretch his limits! He is going to go far...
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