HOLY CROSS SCHOOL MATH CLUB ACHIEVES NATIONAL GOLD LEVEL STATUS

RUMSON, NJ—“This group was extraordinary. They took hold of a project and they were off,” stated Marcie Forsyth who along with her fellow math teacher, Kathy Chadwick, coached the Holy Cross School Math Club to National Gold Level Status, the highest honor in the National Math Club. Gold Level recognizes and rewards clubs that have already achieved Silver Level and have completed a challenging, creative, team-oriented project. The National Math Club is a math enrichment program run by MathCounts®, a national program that was founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and CNA Foundation.

The Gold Level Project was to create a Math Puzzles & Games Pack. The 11 Sixth through Eighth Grade students in the Holy Cross Math Club worked in teams to create games and puzzles which they submitted to MathCounts via a video presentation. Caitlin Ramos explained that her group based its game Numbergories on the popular game Scattergories, replacing the categories with math operations. “You have to find as many ways to get the number you picked using the operation you are given,” she said. James Smith said his team’s computer game teaches how to solve word problems, while players roll special dice to practice their math skills in another game, Triple M (Mean, Median and Mode), created by Isabella Sciortino‘s group. “It was hard to make up, but once you got the hang of it, it was easy to play,” noted Sciortino.

Sixth Grade club members Caitlin Ramos, Kate Bagnell, Isabella Sciortino, Thomas Makin, and James Smith, all of Rumson; Charlotte Cade and Michael Horowitz, both of Locust; and Grace McMullin of Oceanport; along with Eighth Grade members Cole Ramos and Justin Modin of Rumson and Owen O’Malley of Locust are excited about receiving a banner, trophy and individual certificates as one of only eight Math Clubs in New Jersey to achieve National Math Club Gold Level Status this school year. Grace McMullin echoed everyone’s sentiments stating, “It was a lot of hard work, but it wasn’t boring. I’m really proud.”

Holy Cross School, a Preschool through 8th Grade program, delivers a healthy balance of faith formation, academic excellence, and personal growth in a welcoming family atmosphere. Visit www.holycrossschoolrumson.org.