Kids and Chess
Last saturday, our kids took part in a regional chess tournament. Their chess team ended up tying second place with another school, however when players individual points were compared, our kids had higher points on the top players then the ohter schools top players, so our school gets to be one of the two schools from each region that gets to go to the state tournament. Our two kids did very well, out of six matches our kids scored 4.5 points. One point for a win, half point for a draw, and they placed in the top four kids from our team. While this doesn’t guarentee them spots for the team that goes to state, which I don’t really understand why, it did earn them some neat recognition. All the kids who played in the regional tournament recieved a special certificate for participation. On top of that certificate, Alex and Erica recieved a plaque for helping the team get to the state tournament. I’m really happy for the kids, Alex came home just beaming with pride because they were the only kids who recieved a plaque. Now some of you might ask why this doesn’t guarentee them a spot on the state team, and I have no real clue. I believe it has something to do with the fact that they weren’t really expected to do as well as they did. They tend not to take the games they play at the chess class as seriously as they do the tournaments. But at both the regional game, the area game, and the practice game, both kids held up rather well. Proving to me at least that they can handle pressure when they need to.
Alex is currantly in Drama class at school. They are putting on a 30 minute play of Dr. Doolittle. My son carefully explained to me that it wasn’t the Eddie Murphy story, but an older story of Dr. Doolittle which they just saw the movie of in class. I had to refrain from laughing since, for me at least, the real Dr. Doolittle is that older version. However, Alex is playing the main role, and he’s getting excited, as he learns his lines, he’s gaining confidence. He has been lucky enough to take drama each year he has been in school. They use drama as a literacy group for the kids who are doing well. Erica was just in drama last quarter, they did Beauty and the Beast, and my animal loving daughter played the dog who also was the footstool. Some of the roles that Alex has played was Lampwick in Pinocchio, Dodger in Oliver Twist, and a mouse in Cinderella. Dodger was Alex’s first role where he had to sing a solo, and even though he claims to hate singing, he does very well. My kids both have good singing voices but don’t share my love of singing. And performing, which is a must for me, is just something fun to do for them.
