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Horse Bowl Practices
- Find location convenient for everyone
- Set day & time
- Only vary if necessary
- Be flexible for semester exams, holidays & etc.
- Remember school is more important than horse bowl
- Assign section to study each week
- Create outline by week of study sections & hand it out
- Allow extra time for areas that are giving kids trouble review. Schedule monthly to update or change. This keeps kids & parents in the loop.
- Go over questions that are missed numerous times during practices.
- Make a separate pile of missed questions
- Re-ask missed questions during last 15 minutes of practice.
- Keep missed questions separate for 3 practices so you can ask them again next week & the following 2 weeks or longer if still missing them.
- Make sure to repeat questions that team is unsure of in future practices. If it takes 20 times to get it right, do it.
- Try to cover at least 100 questions in a hour practice (200 in 2 hrs) to make sure all questions get asked.
- Allow enough practices to repeat a category on 2 different practices if kids don’t comprehend the material covered or it is a very large category with many questions.
- It is better to know 100 questions immediately than 200 questions that take a while to think about.
- Remember not to do things that will make your team look unprofessional
- Such as, wearing inapproriate clothing to the contest.
- If wearing same or similar clothing to contest, make sure everyone can afford it before suggesting it to team
- Review what conduct is expected & what your/their expectations are for the practices & team
- Always verify any trips or last minute changes to practices with all parents.
- Never take kids places without parental consent
- Observe behaviors at practice
- Kids that sit closest to you are trying extra hard to please you. They want your recognition
- Establish a relationship with each member of the team
- Praise in public & always make corrections in private
- Use positive phrases instead of negative ones
- For example: "I know that you will remember to watch the moderator during the questions" -- not "don’t forget to watch the moderator"
- Teach kids to focus during the practices & it will carry through to the contests. Too much goofing around at practices can also carry forward at a contest.
- Encourage & build confidence at practice just before a contest
- Tell each kid that you are proud of how much they have learned & you know they will do good at the contest
- At last practice before a contest, go over questions that you know they know the answers to.
- Do not introduce any new questions during the last 2-3 weeks before a contest. Just make sure the team knows the material that you have covered very well. No other teams will know all of the material either.
- Tell kids that it does not matter if they win or lose as long as they do the best that they can.
- Ask if anyone has any questions over current section
- Go over major points in current section studied before quizzing & informally discuss questions
- Even kids that haven’t studied will have answers to some questions if they listen now
- Reinforces major points
- Can point out some keywords in section
- Coach can evaluate if extra time is needed for section
- Work on buzzers
- Do one-on-one
- Increases speed on buzzers
- Increases competitiveness
- Remind them that they are all on the same team
- Can cause some stress - increases the teams chances of winning
- Reinforce contest rules
- Can increase debating skills to defend an answer
- Teaches good protest skills
- Can give coach better idea of what members actually know & are retaining
- Can encourage shy members to participate
Keywords
- Certain words or phrases that are particular to a question
- This is true about 95% of time- not 100%
- Small clearly defined – star
- Cloudy or opaque – cataracts
- Blonde sorrel – belgians
- Prolapse of third eyelid – tetanus
- Make sure not to make something into a keyword that is only specific to a question
- Must pertain to actual answer
Telepathy of answers
Tell kids to sit quietly & think of the correct answer to a question when one of their team mates has buzzed in on a question. Tell them to "send" the answer to the other team mates brain by thinking of the answer.
- Teaches teamwork
- Keeps kids quiet so contestant can think of answer
- Promotes friendship & mentoring
- Creates positive talk & thinking
- Takes some of the pressure of contestant answering
Using index finger on buzzer
Kids always want to do something to help them be faster on the buzzers. This method works well on younger members
- Using calculator & timer to make buzzer finger stronger
- Put 1 + 1 in calculator. add +1 numerous times within a time period. Set an egg timer or oven timer to 1 to 3 minutes. Check total on calculator, total should increase as speed increases. Child can do this without much if any supervision. Increases interest in being fast on the buzzers
Watch moderator
- Lips form beginning of new word before it is spoken
- Helps kids from being affected by stage fright
- Keeps their heads up & speaking clearly
- Good sense of poise
- Show confidence
- Helps judges hear answers
Print questions on index cards
- Allows visual assessment of achievements
- Can remove questions they know the answers to
- Can keep questions they don’t know separate
- Wrong pile gets mixed in with questions for next practice
- If answered correctly, keep it in the wrong pile for one more practice to make sure they know it
Vary practice types
- Keywords only for short periods
- Add some one-on-one questions
- Match chair 1 against chair 2 & chair 3 against chair 4
- Ask challenging questions after original question is read & answered
- Why was that answer incorrect
- What other things would cause this
- Name 2 more correct answers
- What is another name for this
- Give me 2 more symptoms
- Name 2 other characteristics
- What if questions
- How would you handle this situation
- What other ways could this be done
- Revise questions in data base, ask the answer as the question
- Bonus questions
- After answered correctly, ask for others to give more examples
- Give one point for each additional answer
- Allow only one additional answer per chair
- Begin with lowest scoring individual, if they know an answer
- Assign parts of answer to each chair
- Relate horse bowl answers to things kids already know
- Relate to human anatomy
- Knee of human is same as stifle in horse
- Fingers are phalanges
- Some parts have same names
- Elbow, forearm, hip, vertebrae sections
- Many bones have the same name, some have different names
- Knee- stifle
- Patella
- Shin-cannon
- Tell story about similar situation
- I had a horse with fecaliths
- I had a horse colic, this is what happened
- Did anyone else ever see this? What happened?
- Relate back to experience when asking questions, Mary had this happen, remember?
Mary, I know you remember this one because you had it happen
- Relate to school work
- Tom, you were just studying this in school last week
- Relate to how they will use this info in future life
- Judging
- Parts of horse for vet problems
- Sounds smarter using correct words
- Selecting their own horse as an adult
- Science & biology in school
- Ask kids how they will use this information in future
- Breakdown into words they will understand
- Explain how big words can be good
- Impress friends or enemies with knowledge of big words
- Breakdown into smaller groups to study then go back into larger group & ask same questions used by each breakout group
- Ask if they know the meaning of words in questions
- Increases their vocabulary
- Understands meaning of question or answer
- Don’t wait too long for them to answer, quickly ask if anyone else knows the answer
- Ask questions one chair at a time (only one member may answer)
- Do this in small time frame
- Attention span of non participants wander if too long
- May need to warn that next week we will do this
- Increases studying
- Can increase anxiety in some kids
- Go over hard to pronounce words numerous times
- Make sure they know the meaning of words
- Ask them to repeat the word out loud as a group
- Words sound similar to another word
- Coccygeal vertebrae=sounds like cockateal, the bird
- Rhyme words
- Catchy phrases
- M&M = mites cause mange
- Pinworms are a pain in the butt
- Ascarids look like spaghetti
- Parascaris equorum are french – has paris in name
- Hit categories with difficult words early in practices
- Ask chairs to repeat the prouncation
- Start with easy category
- Breeds, colors & markings
- Contain words most people know
- Can readily identify
- Probably know some of answers without studying
- Training & psychology
- Save a less challenging one for use after hard category
- Allow 2 practices for longer categories
- Feed & nutrition
- Diseases
- Unsoundnesses & judging
- Easy categories
- Breeds, colors, markings
- Training & psychology
- Gaits
- Management
- Short categories
- Long categories
- Anatomy
- Physiology
- Diseases
- Nutrition
- Unsoundnesses & judging
Find different ways to have fun learning
- Periodically ask kids which type of practices they like & use them more
- Use more than one method at each practice
- Everyone learns from different methods
- Broad range of methods targets all kids
- Have break half way thru practice
- Assign different snack person to bring refreshments
- Encourage communication between team mates
- Share experiences
- Ask what they like
- Conversation does not have to be about horses
- Relax
- Keeping points at practices
- Start with only positive points
- As they become more experienced, deduct points for wrong answers if necessary (I usually don’t deduct when accumulating total points, I just use when telling them their current practice points)
- Give points for extra answers
- Don’t give partial points for answers
- Give 2 points for one-on-one competition – sometimes
- Sit out for 5 questions if contestant buzzing in without giving any answer consistently
- Have chair read questions if they have too many points but do not let that contestant lose their chair position
- Don’t review points after practices
- Occassionally do placings of current practice (not total for all practices)
- Tell them their points for current practice only
- Don’t calculate accumulated scores until at least half way thru practices – that way you don’t know scores when they ask
- When calculating total scores for all practices to determine contest chair positions, drop lowest 3 scores. This allows for bad days, conflicts in schedules, illness
- Handling consistent problems
- Contestant buzzing in without giving any answer
- Sit out for 5 questions
- Deduct 2 points from score
- Contestant is too confidence
- Give more challenging questions
- Assign team member to mentor
- Have them read questions
- Sit out on easier questions-this question is for everyone except Judy
- Ask bonus questions as regular questions
- Contestant is too insecure to answer
- Find a question they know & ask it at every practice
- Praise when they do answer
- Look directly at them before you read the questions they know the answer to
- Explain answers
- Set up study session with 2 members each studying together each with a different group of about 20 questions. Then ask only those questions as part of a practice
- Practice with insecure kid separately
- Accumulating too many points for others to catch
- Ask them to read the questions
- Ask question for everyone except ….. chair 1
- Pull them aside before or after practice & explain what you are doing & let them know you will not let others get past him/her & will lose their chair position
- Ask bonus questions as regular questions
- Start points over after each contest
- Points go back to zero for everyone after each contest.
Member can have too many points so none of the other contestants can have an opportunity to move up a chair position. Keeps all members studying. Keeps members competitive
- Review all categories of questions throughout the practices.
- Set up a category to review each practice. use that category questions for at least half of the total questions for that practice but also review previously asked questions at each practice.
Remind the kids that they have worked very hard & are extremely knowledgeable. The contest is the place to show how much they have learned.
Also remind them that it is ok to be beaten by a team that studied harder but don’t defeat yourself by not being focused or by buzzing in on a question before you know the answer.
General pointers for studying at home
- Studying for 15 minutes per day for 5 days a week is better than one or two long sessions once or twice a week.
- Check your schedule of practices & categories that will be studied. if you miss a practice, it is up to you to find out want you missed.
- Vary starting pages within sections. Start studying from the middle of the category or on page 5 of the category because most kids will study the first or second pages & everyone will know those answers quickly. Be aware that the last pages contain bonus questions that the whole team can give input towards together. Bonus questions will have multiple answers.
- Learn 25 questions very well, and then add 5 new questions until they are also learned. Continue to add 5 new questions. It is better to positively know 30-40 questions extremely well than 100 poorly.
- Keep reviewing questions that you have studied to make sure you have really learned them & keep adding more each study period. Start with about 2 pages of questions. Learn them. Add 1 more page the next practice period. Review the first 2 pages after learning the new page. Skip around the pages to learn a variety of pages rather than studying them in order.
- Remember we are keeping score of how many questions you answer correctly. The more questions we can ask during a practice night the more points you will get. Try to keep distractions down.
- Learn keyword questions. These are questions that have a certain phrase or wording that makes it different from all the of other questions. The certain phrase is considered a keyword. Learning keyword phrases will help you answer questions faster than the opponents do. Keywords are only about 95% in predicting the correct answer.
- At the beginning of the practice night, ask the coach about any questions that you do not understand. If you don’t understand someone else probably doesn’t understand it either.
- Don’t be afraid to answer a question incorrectly at practices. It is far better to hit the buzzer than to just sit there. You won’t get any points if you don’t hit the buzzer. If you get to ‘buzzer happy’ by buzzing to answer a question too much, the coach will tell you.
- For bonus questions, everyone should learn several parts of the answer; this will eliminate everyone having to learn the entire bonus answers by themselves. Double up on pieces of the answers to make sure if one person is sick the day of the contest, the team will still be able to know the answers.
- Team captains should encourage their team mates; decide who will answer the bonus questions. Captains are the cheerleaders of the team as well as the leaders.
- Let the coach know ahead of time of conflicts for studying, such as semester exams at school. May want to just review questions that week or skip a practice all together.
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