8-yr old presentation experience. 5-yr old 1-miler/1.5k run

Saturday has always been busy but this day went with 2 major twists.

In the morning boys' school held a fundraiser running event. Last year we missed due to family trip  but we came back to it since 2021, this time with our kindergarten boy AK joined 1-miler / 1.6km with mama and 8-yr HG who ran 2 years ago as well, while I ran 5km with a 2-yr old LM in single-stroller.

AK is the type of child who seems to feel anxious (or almost fear) in an unfamiliar environment, although once he's used to it he boasts about every single aspect of that situation. Today he was very grumpy before the race according to my wife, but once the run started he didn't stop even once before crossing the goal line in less than 10 minutes! Proud moment #1 of the day.

In hindsight of my childhood, first time I ran 1,500+ meters was when I was 4th grade / 10 years old. Today I saw many many kids ran 1-miler or even 5k! Developmentally running such a long distance before body matures might be concerning to me (as an amateur runner) but I guess it's no problem if it's not routine.

Everyone in the family finished 1-miler or 5-k together for the first time (2-yr old on stroller).

This day overlaps with the county regional competition for students' technology challenges across Georgia state (GASTC.org). Our 8-yr old / 3rd grader HG did well, made it to top 3 places in his category. We prepared sporadically over the last 2 months, more intensely over the last several days. Must be a great experience for him, a phenomenal experience for me as a parents.

Originally we applied for 3D Modeling category as that matches his interest, and papa's skillset as a software engineer in robotics, but his application wasn't selected (the technology teacher at school who's overseeing the school's participation said there was another participant whose application looked fabulous, turned out this student got 1st place at today's regional and moves on to state-wide round). Among some other categories he was given an option to re-apply, we chose multi-media application. It wasn't clear what it meant but with the guidance from the teacher we just interpreted it as "slide presentation" i.e. Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides kind of content creation.

Honestly, with the level of interest in technology HG has, I wasn't sure how fruitful the focused time on the slide show tool would be. In my mind, creating a slide presentation itself might not be stimulative and effective enough for the young, tech savvy mind as an education. In mind it's something mid/high school or college students can learn when they have a need to present the ideas more effectively. Creating slides does require particular skills, but compared to the types of technology exposure other categories might entail, again learning the skill to make presentation slides may not be as valuable as other categories. While that perception about the category of mine still remains even after the fact, I found the real value of participating lies in the student himself completing the cycles of creation. HG thinks he knows how to do things but of course it's as an 8-yr old from our perspective. Before starting the project he didn't know how to import images found online, how to add a citation to those images, animation and all those slideshow techniques. Also he has little idea of slideshow presentation (initially he added a bunch of loooong paragraphs in each slide that he wanted to talk about) how to structure a presentation etc etc.

As a parent, I learned that HG at his level still needs a lot of guidance as opposed to my initial gut, which is to wait for him to come to me for questions. In the beginning, I waited without giving much detailed instruction then he not just didn't make much progress he also lost an interest in the project. So I started getting into detail every single time. Once he regained the momentum things worked fine. What worked beyond my imagination is the presentation. Turned out he's almost like a natural-born presenter (that's clearly not my gene, but very likely from mom side). At the competition he got an award in top 3, which is great, but to us he was already a winner regardless.

HG reviewing his slides, after already finishing his presentation. That's what mama said she never does but papa does a lot.

In award ceremony

That's not to say boys were good, in fact we had to scold them several times as usual...After these 2 events we also went to AK's best kinder friend's BDP and we also went to golf cart shopping. At night we had little energy left, went with Panda Express (takeout), my first PE since my Texas days...Still good.