FPS State Competition 2011

OK…It’s taken me a little bit longer than I anticipated to get back into a normal routine after the four days away.  I wanted to write some posts while we were there, but the internet was so spotty that I didn’t even open my laptop!  UGH!  It was horrible!

This year was definitely NOT like last year!  The event was fun, but it was a totally different experience with the hotel.  This time we had to wait about 5 hours for our rooms.  They were so disorganized and didn’t seem to want to get us situated at all!  With 63 schools and hundreds of kids, parents, and coaches/teachers, you would think they would have things planned out a little better!  The rooms were cramped for 4-5 people in a room, especially considering how much we paid for them.

Our room was also on the second floor in a building without an elevator.  That really sucked for me since I have the bad knee and hip.  Needless to they are not doing very well right now.

The internet connection kept on disconnecting.  I was using my iPod Touch to try to stay connected to Facebook, Twitter, and my e-mail, but it became frustrating very quickly.

Other than the issues with the hotel we had a wonderful time!  I was in a room with my son and two other boys.  During our free time my son would take out his MacBook and use text-to-speech.  He’d type in a bunch of weird stuff and have it talk making us laugh all night.

The middle school my son and I went with had three students competing as FPS individuals, three competing as FPS alternates, and three CmPS (Community Problem Solvers) teams.  None of our FPS students won, but the three CmPS teams swept the middle division–winning 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places!  The first two are automatically invited to go to the international competition, but the third was submitted to international to see if they could also go.  We had others from the same middle school win for FPS, but they were competing for their former elementary school.  All of the other schools for our county also had winners!

Overall, I cannot express how much I love this program!  I would never in a million years be able to do it myself and all of the kids that participate are absolutely amazing!  You can find out more information about it at Florida FPS Program.  Other states may have their own websites, but the rules and what the kids do should still be the same.

FPS Trip

Finally I’m getting to write about our FPS trip.  It’s taken some time to recover from it!

There were 14 kids ages 11 and 12, 1 coach, 3 evaluators (including me), and 4 chaperones/monitors.  I was lucky and roomed with another evaluator without any kids.  Though we rarely spent any time in our own rooms.

The schedule was intense, but the kids handled it wonderfully!  They were under so much pressure!

We got there on Sunday, April 11th and checked into our rooms.  At 7:30 pm, the opening ceremony began, where they introduced all of the teams.  There were three levels: junior (grades 4-6), middle (grades 7-9), and senior (grades 10-12).  Some of the team members carried a banner down the aisle.  The funniest one had a high school boy walking down holding up his hands with an invisible banner.  He “held” it the entire time, while the other schools were being announced.  LOL!

Monday, April 12th was the first competition day.  All of the kids were delivered around 8:45 am to their appropriate location for the scenario booklet competition.  We had two teams of four competing, two individuals (including my son), and the rest were competing as alternates.  The competition started at 9 am and continued to 11 am.  During this time, I was in a meeting with the coach and other evaluators.  When it was over, we all met for lunch, while the two teams prepared for their action plans (skits).  At 1 pm, we went to evaluate the booklets.  Since our teams were in the junior level, we were only allowed to evaluate the middle and senior levels.

In the meantime, the teams began their skits at 1:30 pm.  We finished around 5 pm with the evaluations and met up with everyone for dinner before going to the Community Problem Solvers showcase.  The schools that participate in this do projects that help solve community problems.

Tuesday, April 13th was the second day of competitions.  At 9 am the kids began their scenario writing competition.  This time though they were put into groups with students from other schools to write on a scenario.  This went on until 11:30 am.  We met up again afterwards for lunch, then I grabbed up a team for Circus Maximus.  This was very interesting!  They moved around to different areas of the hotel competing in different tasks, where they got points depending on how well they did.  Since they were all team tasks, the amount of points really depended on how well they worked together to complete the tasks.  The first one we went to involved some word games.  From there we did a relay race.  They had to fill up a bucket with water using a small cup and following an obstacle course.  The remaining tasks involved finding pacman papers while blindfolded and being directed; build a boat to float a roll of pennies with the supplies given; fill up squares to make a picture using tetris pieces; and build a tower out of aluminum foil.

We had some time afterwards to go grab some dinner.  We all split up with some going to the Thai/Sushi place, some going to Subway, and we went to Kelsey’s Pizzeria.  It was wonderful!  I got the Mediterranean Pasta, my son got the Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp, two of the kids shared a cheese pizza, and another evaluator had the Chicken Parmigiana.  The menu can be found here.

When we finished we met up with the others to bring the kids to the dance.  They staggered the kids so the juniors were not there when the seniors were.  The dance was from 8 pm until 12 am.  The juniors were allowed from 8 pm to 10 pm; the middle kids were allowed from 9 pm to 11 pm; and the seniors were allowed from 10 pm to 12 am.

On Wednesday, April 14th we had to check out of our hotel before the awards ceremony.  The awards were very nerve racking!  The awesome thing is that our county’s superintendent of schools came to the awards because we have a large representation for our county.  I was really surprised that he was there because he is leaving us for a new job opportunity in Cairo, Egypt at the end of the school year.  We ended up doing very well with awards, though not as well as we would have liked, we were still very happy with the results and proud of all the kids!  Three of our kids placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the scenario writing competition and one kid placed 6th in the alternate scenario booklet competition.

Here are the awards given out that day:

The other elementary school from our county did a wonderful job on their Community Problem Solvers project, but did not win any awards.  The high school that came to represent our county had a huge amount of kids present.  They won probably half of all the awards!  They did a terrific job!  Of course, they are losing more than half of the kids after this year because they are seniors.  I can only hope the program at the other high school becomes as good as this one since many of the kids in our group will be going to it.  Otherwise, they’ll have to compete for this one.

After the award ceremony, we all went our separate ways.  Most of the kids along with the adults went onto the bus to head back home.  My son and I drove ourselves so we were able to take our time and stop for lunch.

We have a few more FPS meetings left so the kids can work on presentations to present to the PTO in May.  The PTO paid for two of our rooms at the hotel.  Next year all but one kid will be moving up to the middle school.  The teacher/coach there is not really into FPS that much and was not represented at the competition other than one team that went with the high school.  We are hoping our current coach will take on our team in addition to her new junior team next year.

Post On Trip Coming Soon

I’m almost done with my post on the FPS trip.  I’m just so tired and I’ve had all kinds of things to catch up on due to being gone.  I finally have the laundry, finances, and a bunch of my school work done.  But now I’m worn out!  Hopefully, I’ll have the post up tomorrow!

FPS Trip

My 11-year-old son and I are going to Cape Canaveral Sunday through Wednesday for the FPS (Future Problem Solvers) State Competition.  I’m going to bring my laptop, but don’t know if I’ll be able to get online or even have time to post while I’m there. 

I’ll do what I can, otherwise, I’ll post about the trip on Wednesday or Thursday!

My son’s team came in third in the District competition so they won’t be competing at State…still a great accomplishment since they only had three team members and the others had four.  He will be competing, however, on an individual basis.  I’m crossing fingers he doesn’t get too nervous! 

It’s his first time!

I’ll be there not as a chaperone, but as an evaluator along with three others.  So I won’t be with my son most of the time, but I can go check out what they are doing on occasion.  They will be having other activities throughout the time there and a dance on the last night!

It should be interesting!

Classwork Through April

Well, April is the last month of Spring 2011 classes.

Thank goodness!

My 11-year-old son and I are also going away for four days in April for the State FPS (Future Problem Solvers) Competition.  So I need to make sure I do as much of this school work as possible so I won’t have to worry about it when we are gone.

This is what I have left, not in any specific order:

• Women’s Mental Health class: 4 quizzes, 3 homework assignments, 1 discussion/reply, final exam
• Sex Offenders and the Criminal Justice System class: 2 quizzes, 2 discussions/replies, research paper, final exam
• Forensic Psychology class: 3 quizzes, 2 homework assignments, final exam
• Women and Crime class: 1 quiz, 5 discussions, impact summary paper, final exam

I have some chapters, modules, and websites to read in order to do this work, but overall this is it!  Quizzes generally take about 20 minutes or so each.  One of the homework assignments requires me to go to the store to find a specific type of magazine and look at the ads.  I’ll print out what I need and do that this week at the book store, then run a few more errands when I’m done.  Most of the homework assignments are questions that need to be answered based on the readings and modules.

I think the biggest challenges will be the final exams, the impact summary paper, and the research paper.  The rest I’m going to try to get done the next two weeks (except for some quizzes that are not open yet).

If you are in school, what do you have left?

They’re Winners!

My oldest son is part of the Future Problem Solvers (FPS).  At his school there are four teams…three teams of four and one team of three.  My son was part of the 3-person team.

They had their first competition yesterday, which I proctored, where they had to take a scenario and follow six steps–that include a ton of writing–to come up with solutions to the problem.  Then they have to come up with a solution based on a futuristic scene.  They have two hours to complete the packet.

This year’s District Competition was about orphaned children (or street children) in Brazil.

Since he is in 6th grade, the teams are considered in the Junior category.  Our teams were competing against teams from a neighboring county, but within our district.  There is also a Middle category (7th & 8th grades), and a Senior category (9th through 12th grades).

Winners get to compete in the State Competition in April, though all teams get to go to State if they complete a written scenario that was done earlier.  There are other activities, such as team building exercises, that are scheduled for those kids that are not competing at the State level.

Out of our four teams, all four placed 1st through 4th beating the other county’s FPS teams!

The team in 1st place is considered the District Champion.  This team also won two years ago for our school (no one from our school competed last year).  They get to compete in the State Competition.

The team in 2nd place never had any students compete before and they also get to compete in the State Competition.

My son’s team came in 3rd place.  This was the first time these three had worked together.  The team my son was on in 4th grade came in 8th so this was a big step up for him!

The team in 4th place also never had any students compete before.

The coach also gets to take 2 students from the 3rd and 4th place teams to compete in the State Competition as individuals.  This means they will compete against the teams that won, but instead of working with their teams, they will have to complete everything on their own during the 2 hours.

My son is going to be one of the two competing as an individual!

He’s a little nervous about being able to complete the packet within the 2 hours by himself, and he says he has trouble with steps 2 and 6, but we’ll work with him so he’ll feel more comfortable before they go to State in April.

I’m crossing his fingers that he does well on his own.  It will be a big confidence booster for him…not that he really needs it.  He’s the most mature and laid-back 11-year-old I’ve known so far!

They don’t know the actual scenario until the 2 hours begin.  All they know in advance is a topic.  This allows them to begin researching to get general ideas for the competition.  However, during the competition:

• they are not allowed to have any notes from prior to the competition
• they cannot use computers (no research or typing their steps allowed)
• no discussing anything except with there team members (they cannot ask any questions outside of their groups…individuals have no one to ask questions).

So sometimes the research they do in advance is worthless depending on the scenario and what they can remember at the time of the competition.

These are some truly amazing children!  I would never be able to do what they do during competition!

Classwork Overload!

This week for my Women’s Mental Health class I have to read a book called Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood by Naomi Wolf.  It has 294 pages (not including all the fluff in the back) and when I’m finished I have to write a review paper by answering five questions in paragraph form and include an introduction and conclusion.

I’m currently on page 37!  Oops!

It doesn’t seem to be a hard read.  It’s actually pretty interesting even though I agree and disagree with many points.  Though I am asked my opinion in a couple of the questions, I have to remember that most of them ask what the author meant or said about the subject.

Even if I don’t agree!

I also have to take three quizzes for two other classes (one for Sex Offenders and the Criminal Justice System and two for Forensic Psychology), and answer some homework questions for the Forensic Psychology class.

I’m sure I can get it all done, but I’m also going to be busy Thursday and Friday volunteering for a FPS (Future Problem Solvers) competition that Project #2 is involved in!

I see the rest of the week going by quickly!  That’s not necessarily a good thing because I have two more papers to do in the next two weeks along with the regular work assigned!