Teachers are asked to register four students per class and are encouraged to offer an in-class competition to select the students who will attend.

Rules For Competition:

• All words must be 3 letters or more.
• English words only are acceptable.
• Proper nouns are accepted as long as they are capitalized.
• Adding endings to base words is allowed provided the letters are there to do so.
• Letters may only be used once. (Example - if only one "t" is given, words with two "t's" cannot be made.)
• All words MUST be correctly spelled.
• Each correctly spelled word will receive one point per letter. (Ex. - a 3 letter word is worth 3 points)
• A 20 point bonus will be awarded to each student who creates the "Superword," which is the word that uses ALL the letters provided.
• We will be using a 2-minute time limit.

Teachers may register 4 students per class. Students are asked to arrive 15 minutes prior to this schedule to ensure they are seated and ready to begin promptly.

PLEASE ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO WEAR SCHOOL COLOURS.

Procedures:

• Students will arrive 15 minutes prior to the scheduled competition. They will be asked to wait in the hallway until the previous competitions are completed.
• The gym is divided so that two competitions can be held at the same time. You will be told which section of the gym is for which grade level.
• Students are seated in desks. Parents and spectators proceed to the bleachers.
• Problems will be shown on a large screen using PowerPoint.
• The competition will consist of 2 sets of 20 questions with a short break in between. Students must remain seated during the break.

Teachers may send 2 students per grade for grades 7, 8 and 9. Students who are in this competition cannot also be in Mental Math or Computations.

Information:

• This event is held in a classroom, so there will be NO SPECTATORS ALLOWED.
• Two students will work as a team to solve 12 problems in 45 minutes.
• In the event of a tie, winners will be decided by the fastest time in finishing.
• Sample problems are provided under this tab.
• Teachers may send a team for each grade level (7 - 9).
• Please have students bring a calculator.

Procedures:

• Students are asked to arrive 15 minutes early to confirm registration.
• Classroom location will be posted at the school when you arrive.
• Students are asked to wait in the hallway until the previous event is finished.
• Students take a seat in the classroom. Parents/guardians/friends must wait in the cafeteria area.
• Instructions will be given before the competition begins.
• When finished, sheets are to be passed back to the supervisor. Winners are announced 30 minutes after the event, in the cafeteria.
• The fastest completion time is used as a tiebreaker.
• EACH of the winning team members will receive cash prizes.

Teachers may send 2 students per grade for grades 7, 8 and 9. Students who are in this competition cannot also be in mental math or problem solving.

Information:

• This event will be held in a classroom, so there will be NO SPECTATORS ALLOWED.
• Students will work individually to complete 18 questions in 45 minutes.
• Pencils and papers will be provided for these computations, which involve adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing of whole numbers, decimals, fractions, integers, and percents.
• There are some sample problems provided under the computations tab on this website.
• NO CALCULATORS ALLOWED.

Procedures:

• Please arrive 15 minutes early to confirm registration.
• Classroom location will be posted at the school when you arrive.
• Students are asked to wait in the hallway until the previous event is completed.
• Students take a seat in the classroom. Parents/guardians/friends must wait in the cafeteria area.
• Instructions will be given before the competition begins.
• When finished, problem sheets are passed back to the supervisor in the classroom. Winners are announced 30 minutes after the event, in the cafeteria.
• The fastest time completed will be used as a tiebreaker.

Each team will receive a GPS, which has a number of waypoints entered into it. Teams must navigate to each of the Treasure map sites in order, accomplish a task, receive a clue, and move on to the next map site. When all the tasks have been completed, they will return to the base and answer the key question to receive their treasure.

Dress for the weather, as we will only cancel in the event of rain.

Students should plan to spend 1 hour at the treasure hunt.

The event involves 4-person teams working together to solve unique math problems. Part of the event also consists of relay questions where students work independently and use each other's solutions to solve problems. The top three teams win prizes and each participant's name is put in a draw to win a graphing calculator.

Interested schools are asked to hold their Grade 5-6 Speech Competitions prior to the end of March 2012. Schools may invite their first place students from each grade level to participate in the South Shore Regional School Board Speech Festival to be held on as part of the Knowledge Festival (maximum 2 participants per school).

Participants must be accompanied to the competition and supervised by a parent or guardian. Gold and Silver medals will be presented to first and second place winners with a trophy taken home for a year by the overall winner.

Speech Topics

Topics are selected by the participant and must comply by the contest rules.

Suggestions:

• Pets
• Local History/People
• Sports
• Families
• Hobbies
• Education /School
• Environment
• Leadership
• Personal Interests
• Current Events

Categories

1. Informative: Speeches are mainly facts about a subject.
2. Persuasive: Speeches are mainly opinions or feelings about a subject.

Scoring

Speeches will be judged on the following criteria: (20 points each)

• Content – (Importance, knowledge, appropriateness, accuracy, originality)
• Voice – (Quality, pitch, articulation, pronunciation)
• Stage Presence – (Appearance, poise, posture, ease, confidence, personality)
• Expression – (Force, emphasis, sincerity, directness, communicativeness)
• General Effect – (Interesting, understandable, convincing, pleasing)

Rules

1. Students are free to select the topic of their speech.
2. Speeches must be the original work of the student and related to his or her interests.
3. Students who participate for more than one year must create a different speech each year.
4. Speeches should be no less than 2 minutes in length and no longer than 3 minutes. Penalties (1/2 point per second) will be given to speeches over or under the time limit.
5. Ties will be broken first by compliance within the time limit and second by overall delivery score.
6. No visual aids (such as props, posters, or costumes) may be used. Cue cards, however, are not considered props and may be used.
7. Students are encouraged to improve their speeches between contests with subtle changes and presentation practice, but the speech topic and basic organization of the speech must remain the same from contest to contest.