We have heard from you that STEM-related enrichment is high on the wishlist - so the Canyon Creek PTA is introducing a new program to Canyon Creek in the fall called "Math Challenge".
The Math Challenge program is a free school-wide math enrichment program for elementary students, consisting of a series of challenging and interesting math problems provided to each school.
This program, started at Norman Rockwell Elementary (Redmond, WA) in 2007 with a reach of only 60 elementary students, has expanded to over 40 schools and around 2000 students in 2017-2018.
The purpose of this program is to entice, engage and challenge students to solve interesting math problems, strengthening their math fundamentals, critical thinking and problem solving skills - improving their confidence along the way. Students can also involve their families to help and engage in a fun discussion to solve math problems.
The program provides 15 challenges throughout the school year. These math challenges cover problem solving strategies such as drawing a picture or model, making an organized list, looking for patterns, working backwards, and guess and check.
Each challenge presents 10 to 18 problems ordered by level of difficulty, which enables students from various grades to participate in the same challenge. It’s done this way so that it is available uniformly to all students, including those who are currently solving higher-than-grade problems. The minimum number of questions to answer for qualification, however, varies by grade level.
Challenges will be released online, on mathinaction.org, from late September / early October through May, every 2 weeks (on average). Solutions will be released, on the same website, 2 weeks after the challenge, along with the questions for the next challenge.
Our school has its own page on the mathinaction.org website, where we will have instructions, our CHALLENGE & SOLUTIONS schedule, and links to the current CHALLENGE and the previous week’s SOLUTIONS.
MathInAction Webpage: http://www.mathinaction.org/canyon-creek-elementary.html
We do realize not everyone will have access to a computer and/or printer, so for those who need it, we will be making copies of each CHALLENGE available to students at school and allow them to turn them in for grading. Please look for the flyer/form in your student's first day packet to request printed challenges be sent home with your student.
Q: Do the math challenges follow common core?
A: Not necessarily. Questions are rigorous to a certain extent, and some topics (ex. Logic) are not in the common core.
Q: Are the challenge questions different for each grade?
A: Each Math Challenge paper contains question sets that apply to all grades - increasing in difficulty from the first question to the last question. The minimum requirements vary for each grade level; however, each student can be challenged to do more than required.
Q: Can I help my student with the problems?
A: This is intended to get kids excited about math - if working thru problems with them, gets them excited and confident about math, GO FOR IT! This can definitely be a FAMILY project to work on and discuss these math challenges!!
Q: Why the self-grading system?
A: This is primarily to help the program scale easily as it gains popularity among students, and to reduce logistics overall. In addition, it provides a means to encourage fair behavior, by leading with trust.
Q: Can I see an example of what a Challenge might look like?
A: Here is an example of a Challenge and a Solution sheet from the 2017-2018 school year.
The program improved the attitude of the whole school toward math; students get excited about math. This is the most mentioned comment by teachers or principals.
Math enrichment became more accessible to any student who is interested in math. Students can do the paper at home and work on problems with friends and family. Format is not strict. Younger students can do as much as they want to do (and being challenged as much as they want to be challenged).
Students are excited to do extra math because problems are different from the regular math homework. It’s FREE and the quality of problems is good.
Look for more information in the fall about how your student(s) can participate.
If you want to help, we will be looking for a few parents to help with grading the challenges for those who don't have means to print at home - and until we start, we won't know how many to expect!
Questions? Contact our PTA Math Challenge Chairs: Mahesh Venkataramani & Meera Venkatesan
