Science Olympiad, V2 Cross Posted

[DocMom]

Wanted to ask some questions as a follow-up to this thread: http://forums.welltr...ns-and-answers/

 

1. Daijobu: did you ever start a Science Olympiad? How was your experience?

 

2. Has anyone else recently started a homeschool team and have any advice?

 

3. Even if you can't get a team of 15+ kids, is it worthwhile to complete as a smaller team so kids have the option of competing in individual events?

 

4. We would have to do register as 2 contiguous counties. Has anyone done this before who would be willing to share their experience?

 

5. And finally, tell me I am crazy for even thinking of doing this :)

[Targhee]

2. Has anyone else recently started a homeschool team and have any advice?

I've been part of a start-up SO team. The head and assistant coaches had been on a very successful homeschool SO team in the past (twice to nationals). We competed with the team for 3 years before moving. The first the C team was 3 kids (the head and assistant coaches kids) and B team was 4 kids (the head and assistant coach's kids plus my daughter). Kids each did 2-3 events they focused on, and then just went to take tests wherever there there was an open time spot. For B team by regionals we managed to at least sit all but one study test and enter all but 2 builds. My DD came home with 2nd and 3rd place medals and a 4th place ribbon.

 

By year two (for B team) we added my DS (who was a 4th grader and took on 4 study events, and regularly sat 2 others), a family with 3 kids, and 2 other individual homeschoolers for a team of 10. The team made it to state that year. My daughter racked up more medals, my son helped the team with consistent 9-6th places at events with 12-20 teams.

 

The third year we had a 15 person B team (and a 10 person C team) and a second B team with 8 kids (we at that point took in 4 counties). The kids went to state again, and several came home with medals.

 

SO was a GREAT thing for us. Having mentors for the process was very helpful, but the biggest contributor to our team success was that the kids took charge or their events and were highly motivated.

 

Require parents to be involved as coaches - helping kids find materials, incentivizing study, hosting build parties, etc.

 

You will find SO teams are pretty guarded about their strategies and while friendly, very competitive.

 

Attend coach training, watch (or have kids watch) training videos for the events.

 

Make it a fun atmosphere like any other team. Ours was not part of our co-op, but we met in the same building right afterwards and we made sure to wear team shirts and metals after invitationals in order to get others interested and excited.

 

3. Even if you can't get a team of 15+ kids, is it worthwhile to complete as a smaller team so kids have the option of competing in individual events?

 

Yes. See my comments above. The struggle with a 15 person team is that with 23 events not everyone can do as much as they want. The first two years of SO was my kids science for the year - studying and building for their events. The third year we added more science in because my kids were doing 2-3 events instead of 4-6.

 

 

4. We would have to do register as 2 contiguous counties. Has anyone done this before who would be willing to share their experience?

 

That is the ONLY way to register. Only homeschool teams have to worry about this - it doesn't apply to schools. You register the same as everyone else, you just have to declare everyone is in the two contiguous counties. It isn't a big deal. Please don't fudge on this and draw from more than two or non-contiguous counties. Homeschoolers have been very successful in SO and many people think we cherry pick from all over (hence the two contiguous county rule was instated about 12 or 15 years ago). We don't want to give them any more reason to ratchet down on homeschoolers.

 

5. And finally, tell me I am crazy for even thinking of doing this :)

 

Not crazy at all. It is a wonderful environment where kids can be recognized for their achievements. It's also a lot of fun.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Targhee

[daijobu]

Wanted to ask some questions as a follow-up to this thread: http://forums.welltr...ns-and-answers/

 

1. Daijobu: did you ever start a Science Olympiad? How was your experience?

 

 

 

 

 

Uh, no.   :leaving:   It's been so long I can't even remember what happened.  

[DocMom]

2. Has anyone else recently started a homeschool team and have any advice?

I've been part of a start-up SO team. The head and assistant coaches had been on a very successful homeschool SO team in the past (twice to nationals). We competed with the team for 3 years before moving. The first the C team was 3 kids (the head and assistant coaches kids) and B team was 4 kids (the head and assistant coach's kids plus my daughter). Kids each did 2-3 events they focused on, and then just went to take tests wherever there there was an open time spot. For B team by regionals we managed to at least sit all but one study test and enter all but 2 builds. My DD came home with 2nd and 3rd place medals and a 4th place ribbon.

 

By year two (for B team) we added my DS (who was a 4th grader and took on 4 study events, and regularly sat 2 others), a family with 3 kids, and 2 other individual homeschoolers for a team of 10. The team made it to state that year. My daughter racked up more medals, my son helped the team with consistent 9-6th places at events with 12-20 teams.

 

The third year we had a 15 person B team (and a 10 person C team) and a second B team with 8 kids (we at that point took in 4 counties). The kids went to state again, and several came home with medals.

 

SO was a GREAT thing for us. Having mentors for the process was very helpful, but the biggest contributor to our team success was that the kids took charge or their events and were highly motivated.

 

Require parents to be involved as coaches - helping kids find materials, incentivizing study, hosting build parties, etc.

 

You will find SO teams are pretty guarded about their strategies and while friendly, very competitive.

 

Attend coach training, watch (or have kids watch) training videos for the events.

 

Make it a fun atmosphere like any other team. Ours was not part of our co-op, but we met in the same building right afterwards and we made sure to wear team shirts and metals after invitationals in order to get others interested and excited.

 

3. Even if you can't get a team of 15+ kids, is it worthwhile to complete as a smaller team so kids have the option of competing in individual events?

 

Yes. See my comments above. The struggle with a 15 person team is that with 23 events not everyone can do as much as they want. The first two years of SO was my kids science for the year - studying and building for their events. The third year we added more science in because my kids were doing 2-3 events instead of 4-6.

 

 

4. We would have to do register as 2 contiguous counties. Has anyone done this before who would be willing to share their experience?

 

That is the ONLY way to register. Only homeschool teams have to worry about this - it doesn't apply to schools. You register the same as everyone else, you just have to declare everyone is in the two contiguous counties. It isn't a big deal. Please don't fudge on this and draw from more than two or non-contiguous counties. Homeschoolers have been very successful in SO and many people think we cherry pick from all over (hence the two contiguous county rule was instated about 12 or 15 years ago). We don't want to give them any more reason to ratchet down on homeschoolers.

 

5. And finally, tell me I am crazy for even thinking of doing this :)

 

Not crazy at all. It is a wonderful environment where kids can be recognized for their achievements. It's also a lot of fun.

 

Wonderful advice! A few more: what is the ideal number for a division B team?

 

How much studying did you do? You stated that your kids did this instead of another formal science curriculum- curious as to how much time you spent. If the rules/competition do not come out until September, you only have a couple of months to study? Or am I misunderstanding this?

 

How much did this end up costing you? I can see this getting expensive very quickly.

 

And we would completely respect the contiguous county rule - just didn't know why such a rule was put into place, but what you stated made sense. We may get lucky and be able to do this through our co-op...if I can cheerlead enough for it to happen :)

[DocMom]

Uh, no.   :leaving:   It's been so long I can't even remember what happened.  

 

No time like the present - a couple of years ago, a friend started a robotics competition same time I did. We were both new, learned from eachother, and had a blast!

[Targhee]

Wonderful advice! A few more: what is the ideal number for a division B team?

 

How much studying did you do? You stated that your kids did this instead of another formal science curriculum- curious as to how much time you spent. If the rules/competition do not come out until September, you only have a couple of months to study? Or am I misunderstanding this?

 

How much did this end up costing you? I can see this getting expensive very quickly.

 

And we would completely respect the contiguous county rule - just didn't know why such a rule was put into place, but what you stated made sense. We may get lucky and be able to do this through our co-op...if I can cheerlead enough for it to happen :)

Ideal number for B team depends on how many events each kid wants to do. My kids seemed happy with 2 study events and 1-2 builds. That's 3-4 events per student at that rate you're looking at 7 kids. But some kids want to only do 1 event. Our team was most successful when we had 15, but my kids wished they could have had another event. There's trade-off. I would suggest opening it up on a first come-first serve basis. If you have lots of kids interested then cap it at 3 events max per kid.

 

For study events they spent 20-30 min daily for each event, sometimes wobbling between nothing and a 90 minute session. Invitationals, regionals, and state competitions vary by location. We had state in mid-April one year and end of April another year. That's 8 months of SO. We are a science-y family and just did other things for fun (like dissections and planetarium trips or seine netting zooplankton 🤓). I don't follow WTM science suggestions, so you may feel the need to do something else. However, I feel we've managed to have strong science and math kids with our approach.

 

Costs vary. We split team/registration costs across team members then had individuals be responsible for their own expenses, at first. We also pooled resources and called on friends in the community to help out. By our third year the head coach had set up a 501c3 for the team, we did a fundraiser, and had a little more financial wiggle room. Builds and lab events are the big costs. Study events cost only the price of used textbooks and time searching the Internet. Some things (e.g. Robocross) cost a lot where others (e.g. Picture This) cost you basically nothing.

 

We gained so much doing SO. I think you should do it! Best wishes!!

[Clemsondana]

When you asked about how much time it took and counting it as a science curriculum, I wanted to chime in. My 5th grader competed for the first time this year with an established homeschool team - we have enough that we have A and B teams for B and C division. He choose 2 study events, and for the last few months spent at least an hour or each week for each event. After placing at regionals on the B team, he was moved to the A team when they put the final list together for state. At that point, group practices were 2 1/2 hours a week, plus a couple of hours of independent work on practice tests, video watching, or reading.

 

At first I was kind of boggled at how much time this was taking, but then I realized that any topic that my kid did for science olympiad was a topic that I wouldn't need to cover again, including high school. At one point he was reading my college texts to study! Next year, we're hoping to keep the 2 events that we've already done (we'll continue to study, but it won't take as much time) and add a new event. I'm planning to make study for that event around a semester's worth of our science.

 

SO was a great experience for my kid, and most of the others must feel the same way since, as we finished the meet at state, there was already discussion of who wanted what for next year.

[DocMom]

When you asked about how much time it took and counting it as a science curriculum, I wanted to chime in. My 5th grader competed for the first time this year with an established homeschool team - we have enough that we have A and B teams for B and C division. He choose 2 study events, and for the last few months spent at least an hour or each week for each event. After placing at regionals on the B team, he was moved to the A team when they put the final list together for state. At that point, group practices were 2 1/2 hours a week, plus a couple of hours of independent work on practice tests, video watching, or reading.

 

At first I was kind of boggled at how much time this was taking, but then I realized that any topic that my kid did for science olympiad was a topic that I wouldn't need to cover again, including high school. At one point he was reading my college texts to study! Next year, we're hoping to keep the 2 events that we've already done (we'll continue to study, but it won't take as much time) and add a new event. I'm planning to make study for that event around a semester's worth of our science.

 

SO was a great experience for my kid, and most of the others must feel the same way since, as we finished the meet at state, there was already discussion of who wanted what for next year.

 

I can't even imagin how you have enough kids for 2 teams for each division! For once, I would like to not start an event, but just rather join one. For folks who had some of the "build" projects, did they do more than 1? Is it possible to do 2 or 3 build projects if that is what someone really wants to do? I worry it may be cost and time prohibitive.

 

I asked about the level of work because I want to be honest with parents about the time commitment, so your comments help.

 

Can you elaborate on what "group practice" means? I was under the impression that 1 person did each subject. So 1 person did anatomy, 1 did microbes, etc. Is that not right?

 

How many "leaders" did you have? How involved were you as a parent?

 

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by DocMom

[Clemsondana]

Some kids did 2 builds - some really seem to have a preference for build, lab, or study events (and some of it is the coaches knowing where to put kids). When we sign up, we commit to 20 hours of work (which is 1-2 hours of work/week over the course of the study time). When our team advanced from regionals to state, they moved some of the B team kids (mostly younger or new to SO) up to A so that each kid would have fewer events to work on over that month.

 

We have 3-4 main coaches/organizers who have been doing it a long time and really know how to organize and prep. They will also get other folks as needed. Some topics cycle in and out every few years and I've been told that I'll get to coach when they add cell biology back to the list. :-) Most events are done in pairs, so while students study alone they need to practice taking tests together. For some events, they divide the topics (for anatomy and physiology, they each took certain systems) and on others they divide the skills (the map reading event has 2 'specialty skills' to practice, so the coaches make sure that one kid on a team can do each skill). For our team, coaches use trello and post links to videos and websites for the kids to read and check off, with occasional practice tests or quizzes. You would NOT have to start with this level of organization, though.

 

My kid didn't do build events, so I don't know about cost. With study events and a 5th grade boy, my main job was reminding him to study, going over answers to practice tests sometimes, and getting him to practice. A lot of times, they would have both B and C division teams practicing tests together, so they'd say that 10 am was ecology time and 11 am was anatomy time and the kids would all work through practice tests so that they could discuss answers together.