29th annual ETSB Grade 3 Math Competition

On Friday, May 4th Waterloo Elementary hosted the 29th Annual Grade 3 Math Competition for all Grade 3 students across the ETSB. Ashley Lawrence, Kim Graveline and their WES team organize this annual math competition. This event is a fun day where teams of 3rd graders come together to solve a variety of math problems that get them thinking outside of the box. Teams compete for both the Roxton Award, awarded for the highest point total for the day and the World’s Finest Teamwork Award, given to the team who scored the highest on the group work sections.

This year 17 teams of 4 students as well as parents and teachers arrived bright and early for the competition. Before the competition started the teams enjoyed a small snack from local bakery Les Beignes D’autrefois Phil. Our host for the day, Kim Graveline, started the competition off with a few brainteasers for the parents.

Despite a few initial butterflies, the competition became very focused as teams worked individually on the first section followed by working in pairs to complete the next 2 sections. After a short break, teams regrouped to complete the last 2 sections of the competition as a whole team of 4. The WES student hosts from Grades 5 and 6 coordinated the distribution of the questions while our volunteer judges graded answers and tallied points. Grade 6 student James Beauregard tabulated the results on the computer under the support of Ashley Lawrence.

After a lunch donated and served by members from the Waterloo Legion Branch #77, the prizes were awarded. The Roxton Award for the highest overall points total for the day was awarded to the Sherbrooke Elementary Math Sparks. Coming in second place was the Knowlton M&M’S followed closely in third place by the Sherbrooke Elementary Math Sharks. First place finishers Sherbrooke Math Sparks took home the plaque along with a t-shirt while the other 2 teams also received t-shirts with the ETSB math logo.

For the second award of the competition, the World’s Finest Problem Solvers Teamwork Cup, the Sherbrooke Elementary Math Sparks again came out on top. Rounding out the top three teams were the Knowlton M&M’S in second place and the Sherbrooke Math Sharks in third place. The winners from Sherbrooke received the trophy along with chocolate and itunes gift cards courtesy of Andrew Retchless of Aunt Sarah’s Chocolates. All participants received goodie bags courtesy of the ETSB, Aunt Sarah’s and several other donors.

The day would not have been a success without the generous donations from our sponsors, namely the ETSB, Aunt Sarah’s Chocolates, Chagnon Dairy, DAK Soudure Inc., KDC Knowlton, Waterloo Legion Branch #77, and Sérigraphie Nationale as well as some private donations.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to the Waterloo students from Grades 5 and 6 as well as the WES staff, the members from Waterloo Legion Branch #77 who prepared and served lunch, the numerous sponsors, John Wilson, Tamera Hadlock who distributes the math information to the schools, as well as the volunteer judges. Finally, we would like to thank the parents and supervisors who brought the students to the event and last, but not least, the students. Without you, we would not be able to keep this ETSB tradition alive for our young mathematicians.