The Yard Sign Arrived!!!

We’ve known for a few weeks that The Banana’s History Day project qualified for national competition when she placed first at the state competition. It has been so exciting. Well, so exciting, and for a bit also so stressful, as there were many revisions to do in a short time span before submitting the project for national competition about two weeks ago. But now everything is done, submitted, and it is time to celebrate!

Normally The Banana would have traveled to Washington D.C. for the national competition, but this year the competition is virtual. Instead, some of the Minnesota History Day staff, her teacher from school (and the high school history day teacher) delivered a wonderful yard sign, brought cupcakes and a bag full of goodies, and celebrated in the yard. There are actually several qualifiers from our city this year (the most ever!) so they were celebrating in the yard of each student. Today The Banana appeared on the local evening news as well. She’s famous!

I am ridiculously proud of this super hard working girl who persevered through such an extensive amount of research and revision for this project. She almost did not participate at all this year. In the fall she was feeling so overwhelmed with distance learning from school, and just the thought of the amount of work of a history day project nearly sent her over the edge. We said that it would be perfectly OK to not participate during this crazy school year. Just a few weeks after that conversation, The Banana DID decide to do a project after all. She buckled down and started researching even though it was hard, and the project just kept getting better and better. When someone had a suggestion for making her project better at different points in the process, she made changes even when it would have been easier not to. She spent literally every spare minute on her history day project for exhausting weeks on end. (Just the bibliography for the final submission was 17 pages long). She learned SO much. It is amazing to see how the project transformed from the beginning of the process, and even more amazing to see how the level of complexity of her history day projects have changed from sixth grade to seventh grade and now to this year.

I’ve said again and again what a great project National History Day is. It encompasses learning in so many forms and the skills used to complete the project are skills applied in so many different academic settings.

So, I will be smiling every time I look out my window at this great yard sign that we have prominently displayed in the front yard, and you’ll maybe have to excuse a little bit of bragging on my part because I am one very proud Mama!