Build Your Own Math Club.

Hungry for math enrichment, Old Mill parents built their own in two weeks for $100.  Here’s how.

UPDATE June 2013: MVGATE parents, with the support of their schools, have now launched Math Olympiad teams at Old Mill School and at Park School. Congratulations to our 2012-13 teams, who worked hard, learned a lot, and had a lot of fun.  And a lot of M&Ms.  Now active parents across town and in other school districts are inquiring, how can we do the same?  To start a Math Club or Math Olympiad Team at your school, begin with our one-page recipe.

UPDATE Dec 2012: Old Mill started its Math Club last spring. Since that time, MVGATE parents have caught fire and have begun planting the seeds of Math Clubs and Math Teams at Park and Tam Valley, too. The coaches from Old Mill are thrilled to spread the word, and to help our sister schools get their own programs started up. If you’re at Strawberry or Edna and want to get involved, too, just email us at MVGATEAC at gmail dot com and we’ll arrange a visit and help you get started. (For that matter, the Math Olympiad folks offer competitions for middle school kids, too, so MVMS parents are most welcome.)

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Spring 2012: Old Mill’s Site Council decided to offer some enrichments: a Math Olympiad team, a spelling bee, and a geography bee.  They told Principal Adams, who mentioned the Math Olympiad to two parents.  They leapt on it.  (Later two teachers stepped up to do spelling and geography.)

The Site Council rep and the parents had a few days back-and-forth over email:

Focus:  How much the program should be oriented to Old Mill’s top math whizzes vs. inclusive of all kids who want math enrichment?  We decided Math Club would be welcome to all, but would focus on more challenging math problems.  (UPDATE: For the 2012-13 year we will split into a Math Club track and a competitive Math Team track.)

Ages: 5G only?  4 & 5G?  We decided on 4G & 5G, with precocious 3G kids welcome, too.

Time:  Is it fun to do math after school, or does that sound like punishment?  If we met during lunch, would kids come?  We decided to offer both.  Two sessions per week, one right after school on Wed, one during lunch period on Thu.  (UPDATE: We found that yes, attendance does suffer during lunch/recess when the weather is nice.)

Then they met with the Principal to kick off the program.  Ms. Adams jumped online to MOEMS.com to buy a kit of three books crammed with practice problems, charging the $100 to her discretionary funds.  In five minutes we were set!

Twelve days later, Old Mill’s Math Club met for the first time, and started doing enriched, personalized math with 10-15 kids at once.

So far, so good.  OMS parents have supported us enthusiastically, and have offered to help.  We’re looking for ways to incorporate Special Guests to discuss math applications, e.g. finance.  As we got to know the kids’ interests and abilities, we started crafting math problems of our own for them.  We found that both after-school and lunch sessions were packed with enthusiastic kids.

Building our own Math Club was fun and surprisingly easy, and we suggest interested parents give it a try.

Keys to success: Site Council & Principal support; marketing through school newsletter and intercom announcements.  You’ll want a great relationship with your school’s admin assistant, who can get you copying machine privileges, loudspeaker announcements, markers, and other things you’ll want.  Finally, discipline is another key to success.  If a parent pushes a kid to attend even if the kid doesn’t want to, that can harm things for the kids who really want to be there.  So don’t be shy about enforcing rules, and don’t be shy about marketing your math club as something for kids who want to be there.

Resources: two motivated parents to lead the club; a room; $100 for books.  (We recommend the parent leaders call themselves “Coaches” and refer to “competitions, contests, and tournaments,” not “teachers & tests.”  The coaches need not be math whizzes themselves, since the books contain detailed answer sets that could even be used for self-study — though of course the more knowledgeable the coaches, the better. There’s a lot of math & science & technical talent lurking in this town…)