Tournament Registration

Today we sent home instructions on how to register your student online for the National Math Pentathlon Tournament. Please take some time in the next two weeks to get your child(ren) registered! If you have any questions, be sure to email us. Thanks.

WEEK FIFTEEN: 1/13

All of us started our first lesson on a new game today! Generally, on a first week we introduce concepts (through exploration and activities) that will be used when learning the game during a subsequent week. From www.mathpentath.org, here's the MATH we are learning behind all the fun!

DIV I: Kings & Quadraphages
Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal movement, which is the basis of many mathematics/ science concepts, is practiced in this simple, but challenging entrapment game. In addition, students experience a dynamic use of counting skills while exploring deductive thinking and the topology of open and closed regions. Students take turns placing a chip (referred to as a square-eating Quadraphage) on a grid-type gameboard and moving their pawn (the King) to entrap the opposing King.

DIV II: Ramrod
The game of Ramrod combines the ability to know all facts for each number family with strategic thinking. Cuisenaire rods and a gameboard that connects rectangular (sum) boxes composed of different metric lengths provide the setting for students’ active investigation of addition and subtraction, measurement, estimation, spatial reasoning, and inductive and deductive thought. In this game students must plan ahead to construct “RAMROD” (addend) combinations of two rods that complete a rectangular (sum) box length in the playing area of the gameboard. Such (addend) combinations result in captures that relate to the game goal of being the first to complete their 24 cm rectangular region of the gameboard. The ability to associate each of the colored rods with their corresponding number value facilitates students’ skill to mentally compute all of the facts for each number family represented on the gameboard.

DIV III: Stars & Bars
This multiple classification-logic game uses geometric attribute cards and a grid-type board to help students develop understanding of multi-variable relationships. For each play students try to maximize their scores by placing cards onto the gameboard and comparing them to adjacent cards that are one, two, three, or four-ways different. The horizontal, vertical, and diagonal placement of the cards onto the gameboard contributes to the development of logical, computational, and spatial thought.

WEEK FOURTEEN: Earthquake Day

To get the students back into the games, each division had an Earthquake Game Play day. Every five minutes the students would rotate to a new game, with a new partner, and play the game that was currently in progress. This challenges the students to quickly determine the strategy of the former player to try to make progress or win the game before their next rotation five minutes later. It's a great way to remember the games we've been playing and play one-on-one with many of their friends in class!

Classes Resume

Math Club will resume on Tuesday, January 6th!

WEEK THIRTEEN: 12/16

For our final class of Math Pentathlon for 2008 students played one-on-one in mini-tournaments. The kids were awesome at really thinking about their next move out when playing each other and yet the classes were also full of good sportsmanship.

See you next year!

WEEK TWELVE: 12/9

This week each class hosted Earthquake game play and/or started their mini-tournaments. Until now we have been having the students play two-on-two as teams to work together to learn the winning strategies of the math games. During the mini-tournament, the students will play one-on-one with tournament rules to get their first experience with the process.

WEEK ELEVEN: 12/2

This was the last week of instruction for DIV I & DIV II games and review of all the games for DIV III. For the next two weeks we will have Earthquake play and mini-tournaments. The kids are really catching onto the games and it's been fun watching their growth and learning as well as how they help their fellow students.