365 Days of Education

February 3 – Math Olympiad 4

Another Math olympiad test today. This 4th grader is trying to figure out how many combinations of four different counting numbers will sum up to the number 15.

January 27 – Kenken

I’ve still got a horrific cold, so today for my after-school math club I thought we’d talk about prime factorization then I’d teach them to do Kenken. Ken supposedly means wisdom, so Kenken is wisdom squared or square wisdom. My students thought it was great.

Even when it was time to go and we were stacking chairs, this little girl couldn’t stop working on the puzzle. She had already completed three and was so determined to finish the fourth.

Last fall, the school was looking for someone to run a Math Olympiad for 4th – 6th graders. I volunteered. Each Tuesday, myself & another parent meet with 7 – 12 students of all ability levels and try to give them a challenge. Some of the students don’t know their multiplication tables , others are tutored in algebra at home.

january 14 – Math Olympiad test

Each week Another parent and I work with 4th – 6th grade students and Math Olympiad problems. This week they had a test.

The most challenging problem involved finding the ones digit of a number with 50 factors of 7.  Students were expected to see a pattern:

7 x 7 = 49

7 x 7 x 7 = ??3

7 x 7 x 7 x 7 = ???1

7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 = ???7

7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 = ????9

The ones digit pattern= 9,3,1,7,9,3,1,7,9…

I don’t think anyone figured it out.