Grass Valley Elementary has some of the best fifth-grade mathematicians around, as demonstrated by their third-place finish in the 2010 Elementary Math Is Cool Championship. The event was held at Ft. Vancouver High School last Friday and featured 78 teams from across the region. Grass Valley teacher and coach Jackie Graue prepared students for the event, which included a free-response Individual Test, Team Tests in free-response and multiple-choice formats, Relays, a Mental Math Test, and a unique College Bowl event. The problems on each test covered a range of difficulties in diverse topics, challenging the most experienced students to answer all of the questions within the time limit and requiring less-experienced students to decide on which problems they should focus.Extracurricular math competitions are an increasingly important way for schools to challenge their most advanced students and also encourage those students who are not as connected in their math classrooms as they could be. The annual Math is Cool Championships engage thousands of students at multiple sites throughout Washington, and just expanded to the Vancouver/Portland area last year. After all the tests were scored and the numbers were crunched, Aubrey Johnson had the highest individual score from Grass Valley. Way to go, Aubrey!
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