Math team was once again awesome today! We all have a pretty good understanding of Order of Operations, and some of the kids had their first taste of working together on really tough problems. They did a great job.

We signed up today to host one of the Portland only math meets. The meet will be in February probably in the first two weeks on a Friday. Apparently no other schools have yet to volunteer to host these meets which is why I don’t have a schedule yet. Hopefully one will be coming soon.

I’m hopeful that my high school volunteers will be able to start with us next week. It will be great for the kids to have role models and some help from kids who have been on a math team recently, lets face it the last math team I was on was over 10 years ago!

As always keep checking in for more Reiche Denominator news!

The first math team practice went great! I’m very excited about the group. They came in ready and excited to work. We talked about my expectations for them, and then did a math lesson about order of operations. I will get to see some of them again, as well as the rest of the kids that don’t come on Monday’s on Friday. I can’t wait! And I think the kids are excited about it too!

Each year the students take part in two different math leagues, the Southern Maine Math League (SMML), and the Portland Schools League (PSL).

SMML meets take place at the expo amidst a large crowd of fifth and sixth graders.  At these meets I’m only allowed to take a six member competitive team, and no more than six alternates. I  have to have one adult for every six students I bring. The SMML meets are the only ones that stretch outside the school day, this happens twice this year. The dates and times for the SMML meets are:

I am sending permission slips home today. Each student must turn in their permission slip before they can attend a practice. If you need a new copy, please email me @  harrij at portlandschools.org

Practice starts October 6

The school year is starting anew, and with that a new math team. As of now I’m planning on starting practices the first week of October. Practices will be on Mondays and Fridays from 3 to 3:45. Students will be required to attend at least one practice a week, two if they can. Students who do not attend at least one practice a week will not be allowed to compete in the next meet, as always exceptions will be made on a case by case basis. I will be sending letters and permission slips home in the middle of September to all families of fifth graders. Students will not be allowed to take part in Math Team unless they have parental permission. This is a voluntary club, we are out to have fun and learn some math! So bring your brains and join in!

As soon as I have information about scheduled meets I will post that as well. Questions about math team can be answered by emailing me or leaving questions on this site.  harrij at portlandschools.org

Thanks for your time, and enjoy the last days of summer!

Last week was our final meet. There is one more scheduled in May, but unfortunately it conflicts with learning opportunities for our fifth graders so we ended the year early. The last meet at Hall went well. We were on topic and able to solve a pretty tough geometry problem that many other teams couldn’t get.

To celebrate the end of math team the team has decided to cook a spaghetti supper for themselves and the teachers who helped to make them such great math students. We have been frantically composing invitations, planning the menu and figuring out transportation home. The students are excited about the opportunity to cook and share a healthy meal.

Awards for participation in math team will be given at the end of the year assemblies.

Thanks for checking in with the Reiche Denominators!

At the math meet yesterday, the kids worked hard but were exhausted from 3 weeks of MEA testing so they didn’t perform as well as they could have. I am still proud of them because they tried hard and put their best foot forward.

Our next math meet is Wednesday April 9th in the morning, and so won’t take any time outside of school. This meet is a Portland only meet and it will take place at Hall School. After that we have one more meet and the year will be done. Stay tuned for information about that meet as well as our end of the year celebration!

Whew what a month! We are all exhausted by MEA testing, but everyone is soldering through. Math team continues to progress. Monday we checked out our proportions to see how close we came to the ‘golden ratio’ of 1.618. It was fun!

Our next meet is on Thursday March 20. It is an afternoon math meet which means we won’t get back to school until around 4 or 4:30. It is going to be at the Expo against teams from all over Southern Maine. I will be taking six of my students to the meet, two have a prior commitment on Thursdays and are unable to go. We are all looking forward to it!

We went to the postponed meet at Presumpscot yesterday. I think thoughts of Valentine’s pushed some of our math out of our heads but we had fun anyway. We had 7 students competing and with the help of a Presumpscot student who didn’t have a team to compete with we were able to have two competing teams of four.

Some people have been asking me about the kinds of questions we answer at math team, so I decided to put a few up. Challenge yourself and see if you can do them!

1. What is the mean of the three angles of a triangle?

2. What is the perimeter of a regular pentagon with a side length of 7 inches?

3. Austin is helping plan a program for the Literacy day at his school. The program will begin at 1:47 p.m. and end at 2:49 p.m. During that time there will be a 17-min video presentation, a 19-min poetry reading, and two guest speakers. If the time left after the video and the poetry reading is divided evenly among the guest speakers, how much time will each speaker get?

4. When 250 adults were asked if they could use a hammer, 40% said “Yes!”, 30% said “No!”, and the rest said “Ouch!” How many said “Ouch”?

Our next math meet is March 20th in the afternoon, which means we will be getting back to school after 4 in the afternoon. Hopefully we will be able to go. As you know March is MEA month, as of right now March 20th is scheduled as a make up day, but who knows if we are going to have any more snow days. I am going to keep my fingers crossed!

*I will hopefully remember to post the answers to the questions in my next blog

We had practice on Monday and got a lot of good math done. We talked about the relationship between decimals, percents, and fractions. We also talked about how to figure out a concrete number when you are looking for a percentage of a whole. The kids did an awesome job!

Tomorrow we have a meet at Presumpscot. We had a snow day on the original day so this is the make up. I will have two competing teams, each with four students. They are ready and raring to go!