Cora the Book Battler

This year Cora decided she wanted to be on a "Book Battle" team at her school.  Arden and Dax had never wanted to join this particular activity, so it was fun that I finally got to see what it was all about.  

The third and fourth graders were assigned some books to read.  Some were classics some were newer.  Some examples (that I can remember right now) are:  Boxcar Children, The One and Only Ivan, Charlotte's Web, Moon Shot, Kaija's Mr. Popper's Penguins, and James and the Giant Peach.  Cora dutifully read several of the books and took tests to earn her "pins" during the year.  She had to get a certain number of pins to join a team, and she accomplished her goal.

Cora's team had 5 members, and they were the Five Musketeers.  

They had a coach, and held practices and and everything!  Cora told me that my presence was required at each of her battles, and luckily my work still lets me be pretty flexible with my schedule, so I did my best.  

I was VERY impressed at their battles.  Each team would be given a sentence, such as "In what book does a character save their friend by painting a picture?"  The teams had to answer, "The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate."  They had to answer with title and author.  Both teams knew almost all the answers, and all of the battles were very close.

Cora's team won some and lost some, but she loved her team and had a great time! 

Junior High Orientation...Wait, What?

Back to March.  We got an email letting us know that we needed to register Arden for junior high and attend an orientation.

Wait, What?

Okay, so obviously Arden is in 6th grade, since I can count I know that after 6th grade comes 7th grade.  But that is far away, right?

I guess not.

We dutifully signed up for classes, and off to orientation we went.  We learned about how lunch worked, toured the school (which seemed HUGE compared to our comfortable elementary school) and heard about lots of junior high stuff.

And, of course, we got to practice opening a locker!

I don't know about you, but this was the #1 thing that stressed me out when I was starting junior high.  Heck, I still have the occasional nightmare where I am standing in front of a locker and have no idea what the combination is.  Am I alone here?  And these lockers were HARD to open!  You had to put in the combination, but then to open it you had to use the combination dial as a sort of door knob, which was a hard technique to figure out, at least in the 10 minutes we had to practice.

So, I think it only increased Arden's locker anxiety (and mine), but Arden and Ava could still smile about it, so I guess they'll be fine?

I'm not too worried.  Junior high is still far, far away.

I guess there is actually less than 3 months to go.

Wait.  What?