Math Olympiad/MOEMS

[SilverMoon]

If you've been a part of a Math Olympiad team, what were the competitions and your weekly meetings like? I've looked at the website, but it's hard to get a feel for what the daily grind really looks like.  I'm looking at a 4th-6th team, if it matters.

[Luckymama]

Will you be running the team?

 

I did the 4-6th and the 7-8th teams at different times, but we had the same format. We only met once a month :( for 90 minutes each time. If it was a competiton month, the kids would do a warmup activity or I'd introduce a new concept or problem-solving technique for about 30 minutes, then they'd do the test. While I scored the test, they'd talk and maybe share a snack (some kids would bring things in around holidays or birthdays). And finally we'd go over the solutions---I would ask for volunteers to explain their methods. It was really helpful for some kids to see that there can be different ways to attack a problem.

 

Non-competition months varied. I'd explain a problem-solving strategy or a concept from number theory or counting/probability which they'd practice, I'd pull out old MOEMS tests and they could work singly or in groups, on paper or the whiteboard, and so on.

 

I'd say only one or two kids in any group really loved math and wanted to be there. The rest were made to attend by their parents :( I focused on number theory, counting/probability, and solving word problems to give the kids exposure to other streams of math they probably didn't see in their textbooks.

[SilverMoon]

Thanks. :)  DS will be filling a spot for a non-returning member of an existing team. They meet once a week and usually get an hour of homework. I get the feeling a kid who didn't like math wouldn't be accepted for this team. They wanted to know what curricula he'd used and how his mult/div and fractions skills were.

 

Your meeting description sounds like a great fit for DS.