Pier School MathCounts Team Excels at Numbers

This week’s Whiz Kids

Name: Pier School MathCounts Team

School: Pier Middle School 

Accomplishment: A group of seventh and eighth grade students accepted the challenging invitation of joining a new scheduled class that met twice a week for the first semester called MathCounts. Students competed individually and the top four were placed on a team. They placed 11^th out of 17 teams.

MathCounts is a national enrichment club and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement through grassroots involvement in every U.S. state and territory. Currently in its 28th year, MathCounts is one of the country's largest and most successful education partnerships involving volunteers, educators, industry sponsors and students.

This program is not a new concept at the Pier School, but at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year, it did become its own new class. It was for selected students who were identified based on MAP test scores and teacher, student and parent recommendations. There are individual classes for grades five and six, and a mixed seventh and eighth grade class.

Whiz Kids’ Key to Awesomeness: Students in Mathcounts 5 worked on curriculum-based games to enhance what they were studying in their math classes during the first semester. Teachers have requested that MathCounts continue for the fifth grade, so the Pier School has begun an Algebraic Thinking class for students.

Students in MathCounts 6 began with the same curriculum as 7/8, materials provided by the national organization in charge of MathCounts. These materials were sample tests from previous years, skill specific lessons, out-of-the-box lessons and thinking lessons on video. During the second quarter, the sixth grade moved into a unit showing time, rate and distance through a NASA Air Traffic Control simulator curriculum.

This group just recently went on their culminating field trip to TF Green to visit a real Air Traffic Control Tower and the feedback was really positive! The people at the ATC said our students asked great questions and were very well prepared.

Students on the MathCounts 7th/8th grade team moved through the provided MathCounts curriculum from the national organization. Much of the material was new to them.

In order to build their skills while challenging them, Enrichment Teacher Vanessa Miller brought in some community math geniuses – parent Perry Moylan and Frank White, a school committee member.

With their generous help, and the help of Math Coach Eileen Rapose, the four coaches were able to better prepare the students for the MathCounts program than last year.  Miller notes that they are always looking for more math minds for this program, so if anyone is interested in coaching next year, they welcome you and you can contact her at vmiller@narragansett.k12.ri.us.

Toward the end of the second quarter, the 7th/8th grade class entered a school level MathCounts challenge that spanned three to four classes. They experienced each round of an actual tournament.

The last round, the countdown round, was a single elimination challenge. Scores from all the rounds – Sprint, Team and CountDown – were used to determine who would go to states. It was also used to determine who would be competing as a team and who would be competing as individuals.

The competition was held March 5 at CCRI in Warwick from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The impressive state results for the 7th/8th grade Pier School Team (out of 148 total competitors) were:

• Steven Iannucci 22^{nd      8th Grade} 
• Kyle Frankovich 36^{th      8th Grade}
• Eily Sullivan 40^{th              8th Grade}
• Dylan Jardon 64^{th             8th Grade}
• Mabel Hodnett 67^{th          8th Grade}
• Marissa McPhillips 67^{th   7th Grade}
• Steven Walsh 89^{th             8th Grade}
• Will Wooten 89^{th               8th Grade}
• Jennie Dyer 100^{th             8th Grade}
• The team of Eily Sullivan, Steven Walsh, Steven Iannucci and Paul Carvahlo placed 11^th out of 17^th teams.

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