Math Olympics

Today I started the CST Math Olympics with my students in 6th grade.  The purpose of the Olympics is to quickly cover a lot of the topics which we've discussed thus far into the year, and be able to hit them in a short amount of time.  I gave each of my students an "assignment", which was a personalized letter they each received that told them what team they were placed on for the next two weeks, or until the CST starts.

My first period class got really excited about the teams, and I built up the anticipation for the entire period, so by the time I actually gave them their letters, and they found out what teams they were on, I literally had some kids jumping around the room.  I haven't seen that kind of excitement in my classroom since, well, ever!  It was pretty fun to see.  Now I just really hope that I can maintain that level of enthusiasm as we move forward.

The purpose of the teams is so that the students have an organized structure in which to review the topics.  And because I know there are students in each of the groups who know some of the topics better than others, the idea is that these students can help those who perhaps haven't retained a topic quite as well, and assist them to improve.  It's a last ditch effort, but we'll see how it goes.  As the students are working in teams, I've told them that I'll randomly be collecting one paper from each group, so they need to ensure that each student has everything written down on each sheet, and has the correct answer.  If they don't, then they won't receive a "medal".  It's pretty entertaining to see them try and shuffle their papers in a way to make it so that the "best" paper gets on top.

Tomorrow I start with the 7th graders.  I'm much more skeptical about how effective it will be with them, because they're so much "cooler" and "more mature" and don't get so much into such childish things.  Although for being so mature, they were pretty easily beguiled today when I showed them a movie clip of some extreme skiing, and I was able to convince them that it was me doing the skiing...