2nd Annual Elementary Math Competition!
I was going to make this blog post about the new notebook guidelines I will use next year in my Algebra II class to help the sophomores develop their organization and productivity skills. I have my brainstormed ideas below, but I haven’t had a chance to create a visually pleasing graphic of the guidelines, so here is my basic list of ideas so far. I will work on the infographic this weekend, which the students will tape into the first pages of their 5-subject notebook.
LAST YEAR at this time, I blogged about my school hosting the district’s second annual city-wide elementary math competition for the first time. Today, we hosted it again and it was a huge success! It ran smoother than last year since we fine-tuned the planning and details based on our experience last year. I worked again with my colleague at the elementary school that we partner with to plan the event. We started seriously planning for it in February, and since we had already done the event before, we were able to use and modify last year’s communications, documents, labels, and more. Overall, it was quicker and easier to plan.
Yesterday, close to ten of my students who were involved in the event volunteered their time after school to set everything up. Together, we brought in and set up 49 tables and about 180 chairs.
Last year, we had 40 teams participate from about 33 elementary schools, and this year, we had 43 teams participate from the same amount of schools (we have a lot of elementary schools in my urban district). We followed a similar schedule as before, which allowed time for a fun welcome and breaks in between and after the events.
Since the district provides and pays for the busing, we couldn’t get any transportation until after all elementary students had been dropped off at their schools for the regular school day. This meant that the soonest the buses could begin bringing the teams to my school was around 9:15. Three other high schools in our district brought students to the event to volunteer, and they arrived around the same time. I spent most of the early morning making sure the cafeteria lunches were all set, the locker room bathrooms by the gym were unlocked and clean, the bleachers were pulled out for the teacher coaches, the microphone and sound system were working, the scoreboard timer was ready, the envelopes were laid out for the high school volunteers, and the name tags for the high school students were accurate. I also made sure to explain the scoring process to all the high schoolers more carefully, since last year there were two accidental issues with the scoring.
Around 9am, after I had briefly explained the scoring process to my own high school students, I went outside with them to get ready to greet and hype up the elementary students. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of the whole day! You can feel the excitement as all 33 buses roll up one after the other, the fifth and sixth graders unload (some hesitantly, some excitedly), and are immediately greeted with cheers from the high school students in the high-five line. They do such a great job making the kids feel welcome and pumped up!
Once all the teams arrived, everyone gathered in the courtyard for welcoming statements from my colleague and the principal at his school. Then the principal went through all the schools participating and had them cheer. After that, everyone headed inside, settled in at their team’s table, and got ready for the individual competition!
The thirty minute individual contest goes first, followed by a 15 minute break with music and recess on the other side of the gymnasium. Then comes the thirty minute team event. A couple of months ago, my colleague sent me the questions and asked me to go through them to check for any errors and typos. The questions come from past Math Olympiad (a national organization) contests. The one-point problems are easy, but the five-point questions often really make me think! This year, one of the 172 students for a PERFECT SCORE, which is so impressive, especially considering the pressure of the time constraint.
Once all the scores had been entered into a Google Sheet by people working in the district’s administrative building, we handed out awards. The top four scoring students in the individual events got paper certificates and medals. The top four scoring teams in the team events got medals and paper certificates. Then, we announced a new award: the top four T-shirt designs got paper certificates. Every team was asked to design and create T-shirts for the competition, and the designs were cute, clever, and full of great math puns! My favorite one said, “Sorry I was running late, I got on the Rhombus,” with a screen-printed school bus.
Everyone went across the hallway to the cafeteria for a sit-down lunch before loading the buses again to go home. My amazing student volunteers helped break down and load up all the tables and chairs.
Overall, I am very happy with how everything went. Last year’s issues of not having water bottles was solved since a local grocery store donated 250 water bottle for the event. We were hoping to have snacks and media/news coverage, both of which were not possible, but those are things to work on for next year.
Hooray for fun, end-of-year events, especially when they involve friendly competition and math!