Day 116: Math Team

Yesterday, I took a group of juniors and seniors to the regional Math League competition.  It was an interesting experience and it was nice to be able to spend time with a group of kids with whom I don't normally interact.

When I returned to my own classes near the end of the day, I presented a few of the problems to my 8th graders.

"There are 78 kids in a class.  41 take French, 22 take German, 9 take both.  How many kids don't take a language?"


"Starting at Point A, how many different paths are there through points B and C, returning to A?  You can only use each path once and go through each point once."

They ate it up.

**working hard**
"Is it 6??"
"No."
**goes back to working hard**

Two kids were so into it, that they came to school early today to work on it.

One kid asked for the answer and the rest nearly killed him.  They wanted to figure it out on their own.

"What's the difference between this and the stuff we do normally?"
"The normal stuff is boring."