2024 - 2025 IAC Bee Program
NorCal Red Packet Regionals (Jan 18, 2025)
The RED packet in-person competition held in Fremont was one of IAC’s biggest regional competitions ever! They had record number of registrations. We had several Sinnott contestants participating. Overall Sinnott did very well - we won medals, qualified for nationals and just had the thrill of competing/navigating the process. Congratulations to all the winners and participants!
Geography Bee (5th Grade) Champion: Tara K.
History Bee (5th Grade) Champion: Adhya D.
History Bee (5th Grade) 3rd Place: Tara K.
Science Bee (5th Grade) Champion: Tara K.
Science Bee (5th Grade) 2nd Place: Adhya D.
GeoBee Practice Session #2 (Dec 3, 2024)
Time: 6 -7:30pm
Where: Sinnott Wildcat Den
Audience: Kids (Parents are encouraged to join. All children from Grades K-3 must be accompanied by their parents.)
Conducted by: Tejus K.
Topics: North America
Online Red Packet Regionals (Oct 26, 2024)
Congratulations to all the winners and participants from Sinnott!
Geography Bee (4th Grade) Champion: Dev M.
History Bee (4th Grade) Champion: Dev M.
Science Bee (4th Grade) 3rd Place: Dev M.
GeoBee Practice Session #1 (Oct 9, 2024)
Date: Oct 9, 2024 (Wednesday)
Time: 6 -7:30pm
Where: Sinnott Wildcat Den
Audience: Kids (Parents are encouraged to join. All children from Grades K-3 must be accompanied by their parents.)
Conducted by: Tejus K.
Topics: IAC study guide and Africa
Sinnott alumni, Tejus K. conducted the session. He shared valuable tips on what to study and how to study to help compete in geography bees. He also conducted a packet practice with questions on Africa. Tara K. shared her experience competing in the bees.
Bee Info Session (Sep 30, 2024)
Date: Sep 30, 2024 (Monday)
Time: 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Where: Sinnott Wildcat Den
Audience: Parents and Kids (K - G6)
Join us for the IAC Bee Info Session at the Sinnott Wildcat Den.
This year we have none other than IAC founders David and Nolween Madden joining us in person for the session.
It'll be a great opportunity to get your what/how to and many other bee related questions answered.
Bee coords look forward to seeing you all at the info session.
IAC_Bee_Info_Session_2024-25.pdfContact the IAC Bee Program Chair if you would like to join the Sinnott Bee Community WhatsApp Group.
2023 - 2024 IAC Bee Program
National Bees (May 23 - May 27, 2024)
We are thrilled to announce that our students excelled at the 2024 International Academic Competitions (IAC) National Bees competitions held in Orlando, Florida.
Tara K. won 4th place in Science Bee (4th Grade) National Finals.
Tara K. won 4th place and Adhya D. won 6th place in Academic Bee (4th Grade) National finals. Academic bee is a medley of all subjects - science/ math/ history/ geography/ literature/ mythology/ current events/ fine arts…anything and everything one can think of. The goal is to provoke curiosity and engagement in children.
Silicon Valley Blue Packet Regionals (Mar 16, 2024)
We were thrilled to be able to host the Silicon Valley Blue Packet Regionals at John Sinnott Elementary School on March 16, 2024! It was a unique opportunity to meet and hear from IAC founder David Madden who attended this tournament. There were more than 300 registrations. Thank you to our principal Mrs. Armino and all of our PTA volunteers for making this event a huge success!
We had a lot of Sinnott contestants participating for this event! Congratulations to all of our participants, finalists and winners!
History Bee (4th grade) Champion: Adhya D.
History Bee (4th grade) 2nd place: Tara K.
History Bee (3rd grade and under) 3rd place: Dev M.
Geography Bee (4th grade) Champion: Tara K.
Geography Bee (3rd grade and under) Champion: Dev M.
Geography Bee (5th grade) 3rd place: Advik K.
Science Bee (3rd grade and under) Champion: Dev M.
NorCal White Packet Regionals (Feb 10, 2024)
We had several Sinnott students participate in the Northern California White Set Regionals held at Stratford School in Fremont on Feb 10th, 2024. Congratulations to all of our participants, finalists and winners from this event!
Geography Bee (4th grade) Champion: Tara K.
History Bee (4th grade) Champion: Adhya D.
History Bee (6th grade) 3rd place: Kushagra J.
Science Bee (6th grade) Champion: Shreya R.
Science Bee (4th grade) Champion: Adhya D.
Science Bee (4th grade) 2nd place: Tara K.
Sinnott Students participate in the IAC Regionals!
Sinnott kids had a chance to participate in the first set of International Academic Competition (IAC) geography, history and science regional bees with impressive results.
Youngest of the lot, Dev M. won 2nd place in 3rd grade Geography Bee. He was also the finalist in Science Bee. Additionally, he qualified for nationals and internationals in both geography and science Bee.
Adhya D. was the 4th grade Science Bee champion. She was the finalist for History Bee and Geography Bee. Additionally, she qualified for nationals and internationals in GeographyBbee. She also qualified for nationals in History Bee.
Maya M. won 2nd place in the 4th grade Science Bee and qualified for nationals and international.
Tara K. was the 4th grade Geography Bee regional champion, History Bee and Science Bee regional finalist. She qualified for nationals and internationals in all three disciplines.
Advik K. was a finalist for the 5th grade History Bee and qualified for nationals.
Shreya R. and Aditi S. were finalists for the 6th grade Science Bee and qualified for nationals.
Overall, the Sinnott Bee PTA program has sparked an interest of quiz in a growing number of kids. It is a fun way for kids to learn more about a subject. While winning feels great, it’s not an ultimate goal. It’s good for kids to develop a curious mind and participation in bees is one way to trigger that curiosity. To participate in a regional bee, the first step is to take an online regional qualifying exam and earn a qualifying score. Students can participate in up to 3 regional finals per academic season, once per question set being offered. IAC offers question set Red in the fall, question set White in the winter, and question set Blue in the spring. Students qualify for nationals by finishing in the top 50% of their competing division at their regional final. Students qualify for internationals by finishing in the top 25% of their competing division at their regional final or by finishing in the top 50% of their competing division at their national competition.
2022 - 2023 IAC Bee Program
A swarm of Sinnott Elementary School students participated at the 2023 International Academic Competitions (IAC) National Bees competitions held in Arlington, Virginia last month.
Adhya D. and Tara K. from third grade.
Shreya R. from fifth grade.
Kashvi A., Joash T., Parth B., Prisha G. Stavya D. and Tejus K. from sixth grade.
Sixth grader Tejus K. earned 2nd place honors in the Geography Bee while placing third in both the Latin American History National Championship Exam and the American Geography National Championship Exam as well as 8th place in the History Bee.
Fellow Sinnott sixth grader Stavya D. secured a 2nd place finish at the Science Bee Nationals. The dynamic duo of Stavya D. and Tejus K. also finished 1st and 3rd place, respectively, at the 2023 IAC Academic Bee, a medley of all subjects including but not limited to science, history, geography, literature, current events and more.
"Having two Sinnott kids on the awards podium was a joyful sight," shared the Sinnott PTA which introduced the Bees competitions to the school.” Overall Sinnott kids were on the leaderboard, performed extremely well, and made us all proud.”
But wait there’s more:
Third grader Tara K., the youngest of the Sinnott team to qualify for the playoffs, competed in Geography and Science Bees, reaching the quarterfinals in both disciplines. She also won a bronze medal in Ornithology National Championship Exam.
Kashvi A. secured 4th place in Science Bee while Shreya R. and Parth B. made it to quarterfinals in Science Bee.
Joash T. made it to quarterfinals in History Bee. Sinnott History Bowl team comprising of Joash T., Stavya D. and Tejus K. reached the quarterfinals in the National History Bowl.
Sinnott produced nine qualifiers for the 2023 Elementary/Middle School (EMS) IAC Nationals. They earned their ticket to Nationals through an online regional qualifying exam (ORQE). Students who pass the qualifying exam then compete in regional competitions. Approximately, 64,000 kids wrote the online regional qualifying exam and over 1,800 qualifiers participated in the Nationals. With over 1,800 students in attendance, according to IAC, this was the world’s largest ever buzzer-based quiz bowl tournament for students.
2021 - 2022 IAC Bee Program
Tejus K. is a 6th grade student at Sinnott. Tejus qualified for the GeoBee Nationals after winning a 2nd place in IAC NorCal Regional GeoBee competition. Over summer, Tejus attended the IAC GeoBee Nationals in Orlando, Florida and IAC Internationals in Burlington, Vermont. At the international competition, Tejus won Bronze medal in an individual event and Gold and Silver in team events. Tejus also got placed #7 in the GeoBee Nationals Semifinals (top 6 proceed to finals.) He also got placed 9th in USGC written exam (top 10 get recognized.) Tejus says, “It was an awesome experience and super fun and exciting.” Tejus’s mom says, “Thanks to Sinnott PTA! That is how we got introduced to GeoBee program.”
More about the competitions:
Nationals in Orlando, FL was a 5-day event with various written exams and buzzer-based quizzes. There were 570 kids of which 170 were in the elementary division. The buzzer-based quizzes had 8 preliminary rounds, if you cleared those, then you entered the play-offs. Play-offs had Octo finals, quarter finals, semi-finals and finals – all with increasing difficulty, each one being a qualifying round. Competition days were intense and full. An example of Tejus’s day one at the nationals - he had 2 rounds of buzzer-based quizzes, after which he had an hour-long written exam after which he had 2 hours of 4 written exams. In the US Geography Championship at Nationals, which is the written exam, top 10 won awards. Tejus got placed 9th. In the GeoBee Nationals, which is a buzzer based quiz, Tejus reached all the way until the semi-finals when he lost to the opponent at the last question and got placed #7. Top 6 proceeded to the finals.
The International Geography Championship in Burlington, Vermont was a weeklong Olympics style competitions with Geography as the focus. Kids from UK, Germany, France, Poland, India, Pakistan participated. A big majority of the kids were from USA and represented their state. They had varied kinds of events.
Buzzer-based bee comprised of events like East Asian bee, Historical Geography Bee, Visual Geography Bee.
Multiple written exams – some country based, some multiple choice where speed was of essence, some testing geographic concepts like population pyramids etc.
Task forces where students had to present on a particular topic for which they had researched before the start of the competition. Ex: Geographic Factors of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict, Vermont and Climate Change, Rainforest Conservation in Ecuador, and Urban Planning and Gentrification in Burlington. Tejus’s topic was Russia-Ukraine with humanitarian/refugee crisis as his focus area. He had to study the global impact of the war and what the world is doing to help it from a humanitarian crisis perspective. He had to come up with recommendations.
Geopardy – Geography based Jeopardy game.
Great Trading game – Kids had to study the economies of U. S. States and Canadian Provinces along the St. Lawrence Seaway. Kids had to understand the global maritime geography, and trade strategy. Tejus used his geographic knowledge and his Pokemon trading hobby to strategize and win a bronze medal here.
Tejus’s CA team won the Gold medal in Geography bowl. They also won a silver medal in the Hexathlon event which was a combination of 6 different events: crossword, audio quiz, map quiz, multiple choice quiz etc. With that, Tejus came back with all 3 medal categories – Gold, Silver and Bronze. The days started by 8 AM and ended by 10-10:30 PM filled with competitions! The air was super charged with excitement and electric intensity. Tejus loved it all and is looking forward to competing again.
Buzzer based GeoBee quiz at Nationals in Orlando, FL
Written Exam hall for US Geographic Championship in Orlando, FL
Tejus won Bronze in the Great Trading game event at the international event
Tejus bears the CA flag at the International GeoBee in Burlington, VA
Tejus’s CA team won Gold in the International Geography Bowl event
Tejus’s CA team won silver in the Hexathlon event
Contact the IAC Bee Program Chair if you would like to join the Sinnott Bee Community WhatsApp Group.