More about Mathletes

After posting, Mathletes Has Begun, I received a few questions about the program and wanted to pass on a little more information about the Math Olympiad and how I manage our Mathletes group.

For those of you interested in the Math Olympiad, it is a national program that is open to homeschoolers, and the enrollment deadline for the 2009-2010 school year has been extended to Oct.30. You cannot enroll individually, but must be sponsored by your local hsa or other homeschool group. I suggest calling the the folks at MOEMS (Math Olympiad for Elementary and Middle School) if you have any questions concerning your eligibility. I have called them several times with numerous questions, and they have always been helpful. I have not had to send them any official documentation of my local hsa's sponsorship. I did present the idea to my hsa board for approval before including our association information on the MOEMS registration form.

The Olympiad releases two five-question math exams each month, November through March. One test is for elementary students, 4th-6th; the other is for middle school, 6th-8th. 6th graders have the option of taking either exam. I have mine take the elementary exam. Some teams have all students, 4th-8th, take the middle school exam. There are a number of options. Their information pages explain in detail how the program works.

The cost per team (US, Canada, and Mexico) is $89 if you choose to receive the tests and report your scores online. If you wish to receive the tests/report via snail mail, the cost is $99 per team. If you want to receive an elementary test and a middle school test, you must register as two teams and pay two fees. I divide the membership fees by the number of students on the team and charge per student. With 7-12 members on the team each year, the cost has been around $15 per student.

The program is available to students outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. See the MOEMS site for more information.

The five exam problems are always challenging word problems, but I have seen a lot of growth in Orville, who is participating for the second year. The parents of the children on last year's team all gave me positive feedback on the program, and all but one signed up again this year. Each participant is guaranteed to receive a certificate of participation, and each team receives a trophy for the highest scoring member. There are other awards that can be earned as well. I also award my team members points for effort and points for correct answers. When a student earns 100 points, I present him this medal. This has motivated my team to try more problems and report to me on time each week.

The Olympiad only requires the once-per-month meeting for the purpose of taking the exams. However, most school-sponsored teams meet at least once per week for practices. That is why I added in the Problem of the Week component. By emailing the problems to my team members and allowing them to email their completed work to me, everyone involved is saved a lot of time. So, in a way, I do a virtual mathletes (hee, hee to my friend who asked this). Membership on the team I sponsor is limited to those who are members of my local hsa, though. Sorry.

The Math Forum is a paid membership site and well worth the $25 for a teacher-level membership. This level of membership gives me the rights to distribute problems to the team members who are not my children. If you are interested in incorporating a problem of the week into your school schedule, the individual membership costs $15 per year. There are other membership offers that include services like mentoring and feedback. They always offer multiple explanations of how to solve each problem and other helpful features like a grading rubric. It is a great site.

Math Counts also offers problems of the week for free. Answer keys are provided for their problems as well. However, I like The Math Forum more and find their features for teachers very helpful. The Math Counts Foundation also offers a national competition for middle schoolers, available in all 50 states. Since this is the first year that I have had middle schoolers on my team, we have not competed in Math Counts yet, but I have heard great things about it.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave them as a comment.

Mathletes has begun.

Did you get a good look at that picture?

Look again.

What a big group I have!

Twelve kids may not seem like that large of a group, but for Mathletes, it is HUGE! The really exciting part is that there are 4th graders and 8th graders and everything-in-between graders on the team this year.

Each week I email three word problems to each participating family on Mondays. The level one problem is "easy". I would not have thought these problems were easy when I was in the 4th grade, but that's what the math folks say, so I'll go with it. The level two problems fall in the medium to difficult category; however, I did not see math like these problems until eighth grade. The level threes... well, OUCH!

Each member emails his or her answers to me on Fridays. I award each attempted problem one point. If a level one problem is correct, it earns an additional point. For each correct level two problem, I award two extra points, and I add three points for a correct level three.

I also give them one point per meeting they attend and one point per problem they attempt during each meeting. I give additional points for correct answers to these problems. 100 points= this gold medal.

We had our first monthly meeting last week. I divided the group into four teams and gave each team a sheet of five challenging word problems. They worked collaboratively to solve and when they arrived at the right answer to each problem, I told them one letter of a clue word. When they had solved all five problems correctly and had all the letters, they unscrambled the clue which revealed their prize was "candy". I find problems to give them here and here.

Next month, we will complete an Educaching activity. I will have lots to write afterward. They will also take the first Math Olympiad test. I believe the team will do very well this year as they are off to a great start!

Word Problem Relay

Farewell Friday

The highlight of this week was the first Mathletes meeting. The kids completed a word problem "relay race" which was so much fun.

I divided them into 3 groups and gave them one word problem printed on a strip of card stock. When each team thought they had the correct answer, they wrote it on the paper and showed it to me. If they were correct, I gave them the next word problem. If they were not correct they kept trying until they found the answer. There were five word problems in all.

On each word problem card, I also wrote one letter of a clue word. I made sure to hand the cards out in an order that the word would be scrambled. Once all of the problems were solved and all cards obtained, they had to arrange the letters to spell the clue word. It was "piano" the place where I had hidden bags of candy for them.

Everyone worked furiously to solve their problems and felt well-rewarded when they found their goody bags under the piano bench. Who knew word problems could be so much fun and so rewarding?!

Mathletes Week 4

Everyone did a terrific job last week. Team members BH, DS, AS, CS, and JW found the correct answer and completed the bonus work. Team members AC and MC found an alternate solution to the problem. WOOT!! Way to go team!

Last week's challenge was a multi-step word problem. You will encounter many of these in the Olympiad. Since everyone found the correct answer and since I intend to devote a good portion of our first meeting to these types of problems, I won't post any details here. I will just give the hint to this week's problem and let you guys get to work.

Hint:
Think about last week's bonus work.

Keep up the good work!

Mathletes Week 3

Hi Team. Last week's problem was a real challenge. Here is the explanation of one good way to solve it.
1. The problem states that there are 15 houses on Mr. Sullivan's street, so I drew a picture of them2. Pick a starting point. I always like to start at the beginning so I don't get confused, so I'll pick house no. 1. If Mr. Sullivan lives in house 1, then the total I get by adding the house numbers before his = 0. There are no house in front. I cannot add together any house numbers after his and get the answer of 0; therefore, Mr. Sullivan cannot live in house 1.

3. Try house no. 2. I put the rooftop on no. 2 to help me remember that's where I think Mr. Sullivan might live. If I add the house numbers before his, the total = 1. Once again, there is no way to get a total of 1 by adding the houses after no. 2, so Mr. Sullivan cannot live in house no. 2.

4. Now I try house no. 3. The total by adding the house numbers before his is 3. 1+2=3. I cannot get a sum of 3 by adding the houses after his, so he cannot live in house no. 3.

5. I try house no. 4. The total of the house numbers before his is now 6. The sum of the next 2 houses after his is 11 (5+6=11). He does not live in house number 4.

6. I try house no. 5. Once again the sum of the houses before his does not equal the sum of the houses after his.

7. Now I try house no. 6. The sum of the houses before his is 15 (1+2+3+4+5=15). The sum of the next 2 houses after his is 15 (7+8=15). EGAD! I have found the answer. Mr. Sullivan lives in house number six. But wait! The question does not ask for his house number, but for the number of houses on the street. Since I added house numbers 7 and 8 together, I know that the last house on the street is number 8. There are 8 houses on Mr. Sullivan's street.

Now to this week's hint:

1. Find the amount that Ryan paid.

2. If the magazine costs twice as much as the book, it counts as 2 portions of the cost. There are 3 books which make up 3 portions of the cost. Together they make up 5 portions of the cost.

Mathletes Week 2

Last week one team member started a chart like this one:

A- 34, 29, 24

B- 33, 28

C- 32, 27

D- 31, 26

E- 30, 25

He noticed that each person's counting decreased by 5 so he decided only to complete Amy's row.

A- 34, 29, 24, 19, 14, 9, 4

Then he counted backwards. If Amy said 4, then B said 3, C- 2, and D- 1. Diego was the correct answer.

He used a chart, skip counting, and counting backwards to find the answer.



Hint for this week:

Draw a picture of the 15 houses on Mr. Sullivan's street. Use pencil to write in the house numbers. Consider the first few houses on a street, then the house Mr. Sullivan might live in, and then the first few houses that come after that. Use trial and error to find the answer. If you do this and it works for you, when you report, tell me you used the trial and error method. If you find a different method, explain it to me. I may post your idea next week.

Mathletes Hint

Hi Team!
Here's a hint to help you solve this week's challenge:

This week's problem cannot be solved by simply adding or subtracting. Draw a picture or a chart to represent the "story" within the problem. You can even act this one out with your family. The answer is there if you look for a pattern.

A- 34, 29
B- 33, 28
C- 32, ?
D- 31, ?
E- 30, ?