Math Olympics- A Day to Celebrate Math

As one of the two math teachers at BAIS I was put on the math olympics committee this year. In the past years math olympics has just been something that is done in math class. Usually students have taken a test and then played some sort of logic game- the scores are calculated and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner is announced for each grade level.

This year I really wanted to switch things up and try to get students more excited about math. I wanted them to participate in some math activities that seem interesting and applicable to everyday life. So we planned a math olympics that would surely do that.

All secondary students were put into teams of 8 and given a Greek letter as their team name. Students didn't have to go to normal classes, but instead rotated through 4 different stations. At each station the team competed in an activity to earn their team points. The team at the end with the most points was our winner- our winner this year was Team Pi. Following this we had an assembly to close out the day. We planned some various games that staff and students participated in. We also announced the winners for the team competition and our principle told a lot of corny math jokes. But the highlight was the rubik's cube competition. Two students who were found to be the best from preliminary rounds, solved their rubik's cube in front of the school. Our winner solved his in 1 minute 11 seconds!!!

It was such a fun and different day. I hope the students enjoyed it as much as I did. Here are a few pictures to show what the students were doing at each station.

One station we called Patterns. Students had to figure out the pattern of various logic puzzles. Here these students try to figure out "Indian counting" and what number the pens are showing.

Another station was called Building. Students were given the volume and surface area of a rectangular prism and they had to figure out the correct dimensions and build it using these connecting cubes.

This station we called Quiz Bowl. Students worked together as a team to answer questions. Each team had 60 seconds to give the correct answer otherwise the other team had a chance to steal.

Lastly this station integrated math and music together. A beat was played for the students and then they had to correctly put the notes in order to represent the rhythm. They also performed their own different beats together in a round.