JJ and the Geography Bee

Back in November JJ won his class Geography Bee. He has been practicing since then by taking quizzes and things on the internet. The school does not have any kind of guidelines other than anything geography. What the heck! Do they know how much there is that is related to geography? For the spelling bee they give you a list of 400 words and you study. So for this we felt a little lost.

JJ was so nervous. He woke up in the night with an upset stomach. When he got up he couldn't stop saying how nervous he was. When he walked in the gym his face screamed nerves!! Jeron and I were feeling just about the same way. He had studied but we really didn't know what to focus on. All I know is he needed to know EVERYTHING! That is a lot to know.


There were ten kids. One had been eliminated the day before, so the kids were well aware of what it would be like to be eliminated. The only difference is now it was in front of the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. They had the preliminary round and JJ got every question asked him right. Then they started the real thing. JJ was #10 out of ten. He made it to the final four. Then there was a round where one of the kids got it right and all the other kids got it wrong including JJ. This meant that JJ and the 2 other had to compete but the kid that got it right was automatically in the finals. After 16 rounds of wrong answers by all three kids finally the 4th grade girl got the answer right. I think it was a bit unfair the question she was asked but I am also the mom of one of the contestants. It was something like "What country in North America is furthest north?" There is only two countries. The other two questions were about African countries and European countries. See, UNFAIR! Anyway, I was actually glad that she got it right. She was so little and cute that I was glad that she got to move on. This meant that JJ and Madison had to compete for 3rd place. These two poor kids got asked more questions than any other contestant because of having to be in round after round. They went back to asking questions about the United States. I am so bugged but I totally forgot the question that he answered that helped him win but the answer was "Ohio". Jeron and I were so proud of JJ. Seriously, it made me want to have my kids involved in everything. It is so fun to see your kid excel at something. JJ is one smart cookie. I would say for the studding he did, had we worked just a smidgen harder I can say I think he would have won.