Oh, what a week! It started out with a dress rehearsal and then the actual concert with Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestras. Our daughter plays in Preludium and our son in Sinfonia. Here are YouTube links to their concert: Preludium and Sinfonia.
2020 SO Medals – one medal for every event
They did well, as usual. It does not get old – that’s the first lesson. As much as we work with them in music lessons and driving them to orchestra practice, at the end of the day, it is worth it. If you can afford music lessons, it would probably be the best use of your money on extracurricular activities.
Then we spent an entire day on Science Olympiad (SO) training in Knoxville. Our son participated in four events this year, which is his second year of SO: Circuit Lab, Game On, Mission Possible, and Write It, Do It. Our daughter took part in two: Boomilever and Game On. It is her first year and she is only in fourth grade, while most participants are in grades 6-9. So we wanted her to start gently and have fun.
They teamed up for Game On – a Scratch programming challenge
The Regionals were going to happen at the end of the week and it was crunch time. We did extra practice at home and in Knoxville and it paid off. They medaled in every event. He received three silver medals and one gold (in Write It, Do It). She got a bronze in Boomilever and a silver in Game On.
We were very proud of them, naturally. Honestly, we did not expect such a good result. But here we are and we feel humbled. The coaches worked really hard with the kids and so did we, the parents, driving to practices and following up at home with all the assignments. It was so much fun. Lesson #2: hard work pays off.
