Far Hills Country Day School’s Math Team Takes 2nd Place at State Math Competition

Twelve Far Hills Country Day School’s (FHCDS) third through sixth Grade Students competed in The New Jersey Elementary Contest of mathleague.org on May 9 at the Solomon Schecter Day School in Marlboro. The FHCDS sixth grade team won an impressive second place. Congratulations to all participants and their accomplishments: 

2nd Place Team (Grade 6): Will Goldmark, Rylan McGinn, Kevin Sansone, Sterling Shieh 

5th Place Individual (Grade 3): Jay Fu

6th Place Individual (Grade 6): Sterling Shieh

When asked about the competition, FHCDS Math-Specialist Dr. Janna Smith replied, “Our students represented FHCDS very well at the recent state competition. I am especially proud of our sixth graders' second place team trophy. In the team problem solving round, four students were required to work together to solve 10 word problems in 20 minutes. The room became electric when the team round begins, because students are no longer working in isolation but are rather pooling their best thinking as they share problem solving strategies to solve some very complex problems. It was very exciting to see them hovering over a problem, parsing out the work, questioning each other's strategies, and coming to consensus on an appropriate solution. ‘Doing math’ in this way is the type of collaborative work that will serve them well in the future, so to be recognized for their strength as a problem solving team is definitely something to celebrate!”

Testing consisted of Sprint, Target, Number Sense and Team rounds. As top finishers in the elementary contest that FHCDS hosted on March 26, these students qualified for participation in the prestigious state contest. To qualify, any student whose total individual performance at the district playoff was among the top 5 at the student's grade level in the student's district - or among the top 10 at the student's grade level across all districts in the state - were invited to compete in all events at this year's state championship. Moreover, any team whose sweepstakes performance at the district playoff is the highest at the team's grade level in the team's district or among the top two at the team's grade level across all districts in the state was also invited to compete in all events at the state championship. 

Similar to the District Competition, there were four parts: 

• A test of 40-50 questions completed independently;

• A sprint round of two questions at a time for six minutes each to total eight questions;

• A section on mental math; and

• A team round where members work together to solve a problem.