Out of the Running

I am very sad to say that I lost my battle yesterday. It was my first loss ever, and I have been battling since fourth grade! The other team got easier questions than we did, and unfortunately it was single elimination. At least I made it to the semi-finals and read some great books.

Monday Battle

I just got home from school, and I am happy to report that my team beat 'The Book Slayers" 50 to 25, and on Wednesday I battle "The Team". If I win that, it's on to the final round!

Battle of the Books Tournament

My team has had our first two battles, but I forgot to report on them. We won our first battle 57 to 33, and our second battle 55 to 15. The way they pick who will be in the finals is they take the teams with the most points and they're in the tournament round, so it is better to lose with 3o points than to win with 20. My team was probably the best seventh grade team, and we had twice as many points as the highest sixth grade team. What they did this year was take the top twelve teams overall from both grades, and only about three of those teams were seventh grade. My team doesn't battle until the second round, but the tournament has been going on for a while and we get to battle on Monday. They had eight teams in the first round, but I don't know the results of their battles yet.

I have something really funny to report. My school is split into 9 groups, 3 for each grade. Last year my group was called the Tamaracks, and my B.of.B team was called the Tier One Tamaracks. This year my team is called the Tier One Tamaracks II. Here's the funny part. One of the sixth grade teams named themselves "the Unknown Legendary Conquerers Of The Tier One Tamaracks II"! I don't even know any one on their team!! I hope my team gets to battle them, but it would have to be the final battle because they are on the other side of the bracket.

I'll report on my Monday battle as soon as I get home from school.

Math Counts

As if battle of the books and petitions weren't enough, I'm in a club/competition called Math
Counts. We meet every Monday after school, and just race to do math problems for an hour, either in pairs or as individuals. At the end the winner gets something like a candy bar or a cookie. Later, there will be a district-wide competition. The best team of four and the best four individuals (you get to pick which you are-team or alone) get to go to state, then those winners go to nationals, and you get awesome stuff just for getting to that point! If you win the nationals, you get a scholarship, you shake hands with the president, and other sweet stuff(I think there's also a laptop!!!). I hope/ plan to get to state, and nationals would be awesome!