It was a rainy, cold Monday and the “Can Do” Kids were just sitting in their seats looking bored when Miss Pat announced, “Time for a quiz!”
Hector groaned, Bobby rolled his eyes, Eulyn looked nervous and Kathy said out loud, “I hate when we have a quiz!”
Miss Pat said, “Hate is a strong word, Kathy, and not a nice one. How about saying I really don’t like having to take a quiz.”
Miss Pat began to hand out clickers and said, “It is going to be an oral quiz, a game with teams. Tables one and three will complete against tables two and four. Tables one and three are the blue team and tables two and four are the green team. When you think you know the answer click your clicker. Whoever clicks first gets to answer first. If it is the right answer the team gets a point. Whoever gets 20 points first wins the game.
“No fair,” said Hector. “Orrie is the smartest kid in the class and he is on the green team. The blue team can’t win against the green team as long as Orrie is on the green team.” The rest of the class just looked at Miss Pat, wondering how she would solve this problem. How could she make it a fair quiz? Would she keep Orrie out of the quiz? That wouldn’t be fair to Orrie.
Miss Pat thought a minute and said,”Let’s ask Orrie what he thinks is fair.” Orrie cleared his throat and said, “How about I play for the blue team for half the quiz and then play for the green team for the second half of the quiz.?”
The class all clapped and Orrie smiled. It wasn’t so often that he got to be an important part of a team with his classmates. At the rec center he was a member of the chess team and the junior scrabble team, but here, in class, with his friends, well, it was really neat to be wanted on both teams!
The quiz was about nutrition.
There were questions about fruits and vegetables and what you could make with them. Some of the questions were hard, all the “Can Do’s” participated and with Orrie’s help, the teams were tied. Then they went into overtime and the blue team won!
