SKANEATELES - Eleven-year-olds in Heather Buff's class got the fidgets at the very thought of competing against schoolmates last week. State Street School was setting up for its eighth annual Newbery Quiz Bowl May 30 - a Jeopardy-style challenge that saw representatives from six fifth-grade classes match heads over their knowledge of six Newbery Medal books.
Olivia Goldberg / The Citizen
Reading coordinator Toni Colella poses questions to the team from Heather Buff's class.
Reading coordinator Toni Colella poses questions to the team from Heather Buff's class.
Almost, but not entirely forgotten were notions of earning free ice cream cones for their class at Doug's Fish Fry. Two girls and three boys spent most of the time before the event sizing up the competition, assessing their own knowledge and generally psyching themselves up.
“It's like friend against friend,” said Brad Williams, tugging at a T-shirt that read Team Buff.
“You know most of the kids in the classes and you know how good they are,” Morgan Clark said.
Teammate Russell Burkhardt encouraged everybody to relax, and everybody took big breaths, seeming to do just that. As a group, they'd strategized. They'd prepared. They'd read the books, listened to them on tape, memorized authors, characters, quotations, settings, genres and themes from six of the 78 books in the award-winning 84-year-old Newbery series.
Each year, after fifth-graders spend months reading the prize-winning books, classes select competing teams by staging in-class quizzes. The winning teams from each class go on to challenge each other.
This year's six books were: “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Patterson; “Dear Mr. Henshaw” by Beverly Cleary; “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by EL Konigsburg; “Joyful Noise” by Paul Fleischman; “Maniac Magee” by Jerry Spinelli, and “Sarah, Plain and Tall” by Patricia MacLachlan.
A panel of seven judges, including Schools Superintendent Phil D'Angelo, was on hand to tally scores.
Toni Colella, the reading teacher who coordinates and facilitates the Quiz Bowl each year, posed questions worth between five and 20 points to each team. Groups got to huddle briefly before responding; the huddles got longer as the questions got more detailed.
As tension mounted, Team Buff gave a strong performance, matching groups point for point throughout most of the hour-long competition. When a 20-point question ultimately took them out of the running for first place, the children applauded their schoolmates and bolstered one another.
Showing off white third-place ribbons, the students patted each other on the shoulder and acknowledged their schoolmates' knowledge and skill on the stage. Most of all, they reflected on what they got out of their own hard work - months of in-class practice and incessant reading, right up until the night before the competition. Brad Williams summed up what everybody was already thinking.
“I'm proud of what we did,” he said.
Staff writer Olivia Goldberg can be reached at 253-5311, ext. 235 or at olivia.goldberg@lee.net
“It's like friend against friend,” said Brad Williams, tugging at a T-shirt that read Team Buff.
“You know most of the kids in the classes and you know how good they are,” Morgan Clark said.
Teammate Russell Burkhardt encouraged everybody to relax, and everybody took big breaths, seeming to do just that. As a group, they'd strategized. They'd prepared. They'd read the books, listened to them on tape, memorized authors, characters, quotations, settings, genres and themes from six of the 78 books in the award-winning 84-year-old Newbery series.
Each year, after fifth-graders spend months reading the prize-winning books, classes select competing teams by staging in-class quizzes. The winning teams from each class go on to challenge each other.
This year's six books were: “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Patterson; “Dear Mr. Henshaw” by Beverly Cleary; “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by EL Konigsburg; “Joyful Noise” by Paul Fleischman; “Maniac Magee” by Jerry Spinelli, and “Sarah, Plain and Tall” by Patricia MacLachlan.
A panel of seven judges, including Schools Superintendent Phil D'Angelo, was on hand to tally scores.
Toni Colella, the reading teacher who coordinates and facilitates the Quiz Bowl each year, posed questions worth between five and 20 points to each team. Groups got to huddle briefly before responding; the huddles got longer as the questions got more detailed.
As tension mounted, Team Buff gave a strong performance, matching groups point for point throughout most of the hour-long competition. When a 20-point question ultimately took them out of the running for first place, the children applauded their schoolmates and bolstered one another.
Showing off white third-place ribbons, the students patted each other on the shoulder and acknowledged their schoolmates' knowledge and skill on the stage. Most of all, they reflected on what they got out of their own hard work - months of in-class practice and incessant reading, right up until the night before the competition. Brad Williams summed up what everybody was already thinking.
“I'm proud of what we did,” he said.
Staff writer Olivia Goldberg can be reached at 253-5311, ext. 235 or at olivia.goldberg@lee.net
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