Vocab Bowl Season VII Gets Underway with Virtual Kickoff

Thanks to all the students and teachers who tuned in live to celebrate the opening day of the 2020–2021 Vocabulary Bowl season!

October 1st is a special day for Vocabulary.com and for schools across the nation as the new Vocabulary Bowl season kicks off. And this year, instead of celebrating at just one school, we were able to celebrate the Vocabulary Bowl with hundreds of schools.

At our first ever virtual kickoff event, several schools announced their #BOWLGOALS for the 2020–2021 season. The illustrious Larry Lexicon and his students from Buckingham Charter High School made a special appearance, and our team hosted live interviews with special guests from Ashe County Middle, Hollywood Hills High, and William Dandy Middle.

Competition was fierce but friendly throughout the event, as attendees competed for fun prizes in a virtual scavenger hunt and huge Vocab Jam. Prizes went to eight lucky classrooms, and their students will get to enjoy Amazon gift cards, Amazon Echos, Vocabulary.com Swag, and popular books recommended by Project LIT Community.

Over 550 attendees joined us live, and with the majority of those being teachers who streamed the kickoff for their classes, we estimate that a few thousand people tuned in! During the event, more than 500 people from across the map played in our huge Vocab Jam. And throughout opening day schools tracked their progress on the virtual leaderboards.

Winners of the Opening Day Challenge

Speaking of Vocab Bowl leaderboards, for the first time we held a special one-day challenge and awarded official certificates of achievement to the Top 10 schools in Division I, II and III. Here are the winners:

Division I	Division II	Division III
1. Saint Thomas Aquinas H.S.	1. Oswassa Eighth Grade	1. McKenzie M.S.
2. Etiwanda H.S.	2. Pines M.S.	2. Buckingham Charter H.S.
3. Walnut Hills H.S.	3. Great Neck North M.S.	3. Immaculate Conception
4. Piscataway Township H.S.	4. Muscatel M.S.	4. Ashe County M.S.
5. Diman Regional Vocational	5. Fred S Engle M.S.	5. Currituck County M.S.
6. Westglades M.S.	6. Archbishop Shaw H.S.	6. Saint Joseph's School
7. Boca Raton Community H.S.	7. York Catholic H.S.	7. Infinity Institute
8. East Lake H.S.	8. William Dandy M.S.	7. Banner Elementary
9. Hialeah Gardens M.S.	9. Immaculate Heart Academy	9. Hanceville M.S.
10. Liberty H.S.	10. Saint Bonaventure	10. Trinity Christian School

Small but Mighty

Proving yet again that you don't have to be huge to be a Bowl behemoth, small-but-mighty Division III McKenzie Middle School from McKenzie, Tennessee out-mastered every other school in North America to top the overall leaderboard on opening day. Congratulations, Rebels!

McKenzie Middle wasn't the only Division III school to top the leaderboards on opening day. Buckingham Charter, Immaculate Conception School, and Ashe County Middle all placed in the Top 5 on the overall leaderboard.

Set your 2020–2021 #BOWLGOAL

There's still plenty of time to set your school's #BOWLGOAL and compete in the 2020–2021 season! What's a #BOWLGOAL? It's an attainable milestone that you set for your school on the Vocabulary Bowl leaderboards to motivate your students to play, compete, and learn. Check out this video of schools from across the nation announcing their 2020–2021 #BOWLGOALS!

We Want to Shoutout Your School!

We love celebrating academic achievement, and we're always looking for successes great and small to shoutout. If you want to get your school featured on Vocabulary.com this season, send us a short video or photo of your #BOWLGOALS and you may be featured in one of our monthly Bowl Round-up Videos. Here are some tips on getting featured.

New Teacher Resources

Want some ideas to help you build some Bowl momentum in your classroom? Set your students up for success with these helpful resources:

Are you in?

It takes just seconds to sign up and select your school, and from that moment on every word your students master counts for your school in the competition. Here's all the info on how to get your school involved in the Vocabulary Bowl.