Math Olympics

A Day to Celebrate Math... (and as the math teacher that means I am in charge of it) This year's plan- "Mini Measurement Olympics" for all grades- preschool all the way up to 12th grade. The little kids made up their own units like tiles and counting. Older elementary did metric units (which is easier for our students here and comes more naturally to them). Secondary students did US customary units to make it more challenging. When I told them that we were not doing metric but instead customary units there was some groaning. It was challenging for them because they do not think in terms of those units normally in their everyday lives. (I did hear some kids throughout the day asking "how many inches are in a foot" or "how many inches are in a meter.") We had a fun day and ended it with an all school assembly where we set up the game show "Hollywood Squares." We chose staff members to be the celebrities in the squares and continued our theme of measurement by asking questions like "How long is the school building?" and "What is the population of the world?" Here's a bit of a recap of the day.

A beautiful day to be outside and participate in a "mini measurement olympics"

First event- "Paper Plate Discus"

Students had to throw the plate. Then estimate how far they threw in inches. Then measure the exact distance and see how close they were.

Hmmm... how far would that be in inches

Next event was the "Drinking Straw Javelin" Students had to throw the straw. Estimate and measure.

Next event was "Left-Handed Sponge Squeeze" Students had to estimate how much water they could squeeze out of a sponge in fluid ounces. This was really hard for them; they did not know fluid ounces at all.

Matt the other math teacher looking to see how much volume it is.

Next event was the "Big Foot" Students had to estimate how many square inches their foot is, then trace it on graph paper and calculate the actual amount.

The last event I don't have a picture of but it was the "Right-Handed Marble Grab" Students had to grab a handful of marbles and estimate how much they weighed in ounces. Then they measured it on a scale to find out the actual weight.

Calculating the difference between their estimate and the actual measure.

This picture cracks me up because there is something about 8th grade boys and climbing... no matter how many times I told them to not get on this thing they just couldn't stay off.

In the busyness of it all I don't have any pictures of our assembly and Hollywood Squares. Here's the only thing I do have to show you. These are our squares and celebrities:

Love it! :)