You Win Some, You Lose Some

Evan's 1st Grade Science Fair Project: Stream Ecology
What boy doesn't love to dig around in a stream?

Lifting up rocks...

and trying to catch little critters...

like crawdads.. or crayfish, as some call them.

or Sowbugs..

Dragonfly larvae (this one scared us to death:)

or "Aquatic Worms", which we learned are different than Earth worms which is what it looked like.

Mayfly larvae, or was it Stonefly? I don't remember now.

We even found a salamander, which was very quick and difficult to catch. It climbed up on Chloe's boot and Matthew made her stand very still while I took a picture. She was terrified!

Trying to get away...

We finally got it in the bowl.. don't worry we released him right away.

So, after we collected and photographed all these critters, we went back home and used this really cool website to identify them all on the i-pad. It asked questions like "Segmented legs or no legs?", "Six legs or more than six legs?" and then after following the questions it would take you to a "critter" and give you an information sheet about it. From those sheets, we learned which "critters" were very sensitive to pollution, which were somewhat sensitive, and which were not sensitive. We found a record keeping sheet where we recorded the number of each creature that he found and multiplied the totals by 3 (for sensitive), 2 (for somewhat sensitive), and 1(for not sensitive) to get a total index of the stream's cleanliness. We learned that Granddaddy's stream was in excellent condition. I helped Evan make a graph on a cool website where you just enter your labels and such. We could have entered his data, too, but I thought he might get more out of it by coloring it in. We learned that it is easier for him to type than write, which is a bonus because it looked better, too. Evan really learned a lot from this project and had fun with it, too. I was amazed by some of the skills I didn't even realize he had... for example the typing. He was great at typing and was even starting to type with multiple fingers instead of just hunting and pecking with his index finger. Also, I had a calculator ready for him for the multiplication, but he could do it in his head! That was pretty amazing to me! He is really great at math. He just has a mind for math and does quite a bit of it in his head with no problem. This is really amazing to me because math is definitely not my thing! It was a great success and I am so proud of him for his hard work.

We were super excited when he won 1st place in his school science fair!

It was extra special because his best friend, Carson won a trophy, too.

Evan was really excited about going to the county science fair. We headed down to Loudon High School last night. I think as soon as Evan saw the big high school, he started feeling a little nervous. The county fair last year was held at his school, so it was home territory for him.

I could tell his nerves were getting to him as we were setting up. I took him for a walk around the school to try to help him relax, but I could tell it was building up. He ran through his presentation one more time for me and did great before I left him, but when it was time for me to go he had his nose stuck in his book and would barely talk.

Finally, they brought him back into the auditorium and announced the winners out of his group. There were 21 contestants in the Grades 1-2 Experiments category and they choose 5 Grand Champions. I could tell Evan was getting more and more disappointed as each name was called. When the final and fifth name was called and it was not his, he looked at me with a heart-breaking look.

I smiled and mouthed that it was ok, but by the time he made it off the stage he already had the tears in his eyes. I met him in the aisle and he said, "I feel sick to my stomach, " and immediately burst into tears. We quickly went to retrieve his project and made it to the car. He was so upset! No matter how many times I assured him that we were proud of him and that he had done his best and that was all that mattered, he wouldn't accept it. I felt really bad for him. He said he "freaked out" when the judges came to talk to him and got mixed up and said the wrong words and then got confused. Evan has been getting more and more shy lately and I was a little afraid this might happen. He knew that project inside and out, but he was just too nervous. We talked about how sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. No one wins everything all the time. I reminded him that there were a lot of kids in his category and that many of them were second graders. He said, "I feel like mine was the worst project." He kept saying, "I'm so embarrassed." And he was certain his daddy would be disappointed because he had told him to "go get a trophy." It was really a hard mothering moment.

As I was listening to him cry and tried to reassure him, I knew this was an important moment. I knew there were valuable lessons for him to learn in this moment, but I was at a total loss for how to bring them to light because at the moment all I could focus on was his heartbreak. I told him that I knew exactly how he felt. He saw me shed a few tears over the weekend when I realized that a job that I had interviewed for and really, really wanted had already been given to someone else. Not winning is really, really hard. Especially when it is something that you really, really want. But, it is ten times harder to watch your child go through it. I began to understand that Texas cheerleader mom a little more, (just kidding).  Finally, after a phone call to daddy and vanilla milkshake on the way home (ice cream is what makes me feel better in times like this), he began to calm down a little.... but he still doesn't want to talk about it.

Last night I realized that Evan is a lot like me. He is not very competitive when it comes to sports. I've never seen him so much as frown over a loss or a mistake he has made on the playing field. This drives his daddy crazy. But, when it comes to school he is fiercely competitive. He wants to win. He wants to be the best. We encourage this (although we try not to put pressure on him) by always reminding him how important it is to do his best at school and on tests, celebrating good grades and progress, and going over things that he misses to try to help him improve next time. He takes a serious interest in his progress in school, his reading ability, words per minute tests, spelling tests, math tests, and his benchmark tests that he makes. We are so proud of him for this and we hope it continues. As much as I hurt for him last night and wished he didn't have to feel that way, I'm glad he cared. I'm glad he had wanted to win and I hope he tries even harder next year.

I couldn't be prouder of him!