Tuesday, September 30, 2008

RED WINS














We had the students in Math Club vote for their favorite T-Shirt design and the RED T-Shirt with the Math Pentathlon Shooting Stars won the popular vote by a landslide! One section of students actually tied 10-10 between the two finalists, but in most classes the vote for this design was overwhelming and it won both the electoral college vote and the popular vote! As part of the Math Club all students will get a T-Shirt but if you want one too and haven't ordered one, be sure to contact us right away!

WEEK THREE: 9/30

We continued playing our first games this week and reviewed a few game worksheets to help us think about strategy and imagine some what if scenarios. This was our last week for learning CALLA, FIAR, & CONTIG 60 but not our last week playing it! After each learning section, we'll have an Earthquake Game Day where the kids will have fun playing the games we have learned to date while having to be on the move from game to game and continuously changing their thinking.

The best part of this program is cooperative learning! We play in groups of four with two students on each team, who sit across the table diagonally from each other. The number one goal for our kids at this point is to say, "Partner, I'm going to make this move, because . . . What do you think?" We are trying to help our friends with learning the game and understanding strategic moves that help us to play better. We know that we are supposed to help each other now, so we can all play well at tournament when we are playing against students from other schools. The kids are really cognizant of including their partners in their decision making. This translates to better sharing and math skills for everyone.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Need Game?

The Math Pentathlon Institute is having a Back-T0-School Special on their games. If you are interested in purchasing a set for home use, be sure to visit their website soon! Offer expires October 5th.

http://www.innovativeecom.com/b2c/browse.pl?owner=90

Thursday, September 25, 2008

T-Shirt Finalists





Here are our two T-Shirt Design Finalists! We had 17 entries and the decision to narrow the field was so difficult we had two rounds of voting. These designs will be sent to the students next Tuesday when they will vote for our club T-Shirt.

CONGRATULATIONS to FBE Mom & Artist Betsy Melton for both of these designs!

A special honorable mention for all of the artists who shared their time and talents in creating fantastic artwork for our club T-shirts: Stephen Dudley, Lauren Mack, Chanta Sheidow, Nikki Muirhead, and Lisa Mack.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

WEEK TWO, 9/23

Today we learned the How-To's of our first game! For a quick look at the game highlights and rules, follow the links below.

DIV I: Calla
http://mathpentath.org/pdf/highlightsdiv1.pdf

DIV II: FIAR (Four-In-A-Row)
http://mathpentath.org/pdf/highlightsdiv2.pdf

DIV III: Contig 60
http://mathpentath.org/pdf/highlightsdiv3.pdf

The kids did GREAT today! We had a fun time.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

WEEK ONE, 9/16

Hopefully, by now, your student has shared some of their fun from today's class with you! All of the classes reviewed what it means to be a PENTATHLETE and a member of the Fern Bluff Math Pentathlon Bobcats. We also talked about the purple FLAG CARD that students pass from player to player to indicate which person has the current move.

DIV I: Students learned a lot about standard configurations (how numbers appear in a way that is easily recognized such as found on dice, cards, or dominoes). We also practiced how to set up the CALLA game board using standard configurations. Send homes included a reference sheet for standard configurations and a few practice sheets.

DIV II: Learned three games which progressively became more challenging where the object was to get your chips lined up three in a row. The game "Five Chip" was sent home for practice play. Ask your student how to play! No need to get blue or red chips: use pennies and dimes as markers.

DIV III: After a brief review of standard configuration, students rolled dice to play "Cover Up" where the object is to cover a bingo type board of numbers by adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing the numbers showing on the dice.

NOTE: Send home worksheets are always optional. This is a club that teaches math, but is supposed to be FUN! If you have time and desire to do these, fantastic, that's why we are sending them home.

EMAIL

We will be communicating primarily through email so please be sure that your email isn’t sending important information to your junk folder!

You should have received several notes by now including:

Important information about Math Club,
  • Tuesday’s rotating staff assignments,
  • Tournament Supervisor groups, and a
  • Class list and meeting room reminder.

If you have not received these from lisamack@austin.rr.com, check your junk folder as your spam filter might be working overtime!