stlplaceEngineering Intern – Shape the Streets of Kirkwood! (college)
Teen: Shaw Institute for Field Training, SIFT
Missouri Botanical Garden has other internship opportunities as well.
I started learning Cantonese 粤语 from Duolingo about 40 days ago: learn via the Duolingo app or website is relatively easier than using tape recorder for TOEFL back in year 1995/1996. This is my 1st attempt to learn Cantonese. Note 粤语 was very popular when I was in college (1989 to 1993). I didn’t get chance to learn then, probably because I didn’t think too much of it at that time too.
Here is some background I put on YT (in mandarin).
Why I decided to learn Cantonese now?
Two reasons:
First, I noticed the beauty of Cantonese and its resemblance to ancient Chinese 古汉语或文言文。Those beauty is available in other Chinese Dialects 方言 too. But my expectation is most dialects won’t survive in the foreseeable future, as we saw the China population continue moving into urban areas, and the population or standardization of mandarin cross the whole country, and to some extent cross the Chinese communities all over the world. In fact, in the old days in Shanghai I can hear many people talk in Shanghainese (or Shanghai dialect), now it’s quite rare. Even my brother who is in the bay area of the USA and I occasionally talks, we use mandarin, instead of the Ningbo dialect.
Second, I think I may move to HK and live there for an extended period of time after my kids going off to college. I liked HK a lot during our short visit last summer. (Update 09-02-2025) Re: moving or living in HK or SZ, my older daughter reminded me the other day, that I need to watch our younger daughter (aka her younger sister) a bit even if/when she goes off to college. This is a fair comment – I don’t intend to leave her completely when she is 18 (or 22 for that matter), and I will make sure either I will be present, or a trusted friend is around if she needs anything. I recall even in recent years, my parents who is almost 80, would remind me this or that – in their eyes, I am always a kid 🙂 Same rule applies here.
Some new knowledge or confirmed information
Cantonese could have different writing compared to mandarin Chinese, e.g., 古巨基 in 粤语 VS 古巨基 in 国语 (this one is actually simplified Chinese) vs. 台湾正体 (traditional Chinese). You will noticed even if you know mandarin either simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese, a lot of times it’s still quite hard to understand the Cantonese.
Also, I write about a related blog post Cantonese song and lyrics writer.
(Update 09-02-2025) I came across this free resource online (saw it via RedNote, or Xiaohongshu) by Chinese University in Hong Kong.
(01-23-2025) Last Saturday I learned wustl has an area that its school shuttle covers (don’t know where to find it online). And I came across this one about why people (mainly students I assume) usually live.
(11-03-2024 更新) 我上载了一个油管视频，是关于这个主题的，欢迎各种意见反馈。
(有人在小红书上问 #圣路易斯 哪里比较 #安全，我猜可能是华大学生，以下是我的回答）：综合考虑，建议住 #Clayton, #Brentwood, #Olivette 等。如果有上K-12的小孩，学区来讲，Olivette (Ladue), 和 Clayton 是密苏里公立学校/学区里面第一和第二名。Brentwood ranked 12th in the state of Missouri on Niche.com.
其它也有不少地方是安全的,比如 Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Maryland Heights, 绝大部份的 west county, south county. West county 和south county 要稍远一些。
我自己的的经历
我从2000年秋天到圣路易斯。一开始在Bridgeton (机场✈️附近）住了一年。住在那里的主要原因是当时我刚到圣路易斯，我有一个朋友住在那个小区，那个公寓离我上班的地方（办公室）也挺近。This is the apartment. I think it’s generally okay to live there – besides 2 or 3 unpleasant things or exceptions I experienced. I can elaborate later if needed.
A year later, I moved to Park Forest Apartments, off River Des Peres and once the river flooded to the road, and I had to abandon my car on the roadside, and walked uphill. My car was damaged or anything. It was just a flash flood. It’s not perfect, but it’s better in general. Also, a bonus point, that place is about one mile (one way) walk to the famous Ted Drews: arguably the most famous ice cream shop on the route 66.
In April 2005, I moved to the Briarcliff Condo in Creve Coeur. And I lived in the area since then – I mean the Ladue school district. I moved to Olivette in August 2019 – essentially I moved from near the west side of Monsanto/Bayer campus to near the east side of Monsanto/Bayer campus. Note Bayer has since sold the west campus (Olia Villiage, currently under development), and currently they are looking to sell majority of the east campus too.
Graduate Students in WUSTL (Washington University in St Louis)
A little over 20 years ago (fall of 1999 and 2003), I helped my friends find apartment at University Square Apartments (could not find their website, this is just the google map). Both friends are graduate students originally from China. Recently I heard college students (some are likely master/graduate students) are staying at Clayton on the Park – which is a high-end/luxury apartment in downtown Clayton (right across the street from the Shaw Park). This seems also can be an indicator of the economy development of China in last 25 years.
【St.Louis | Housing】圣路易斯华盛顿大学租房 | 全美犯罪率最高？| St Louis 生活学习 (YouTube by Kath Y.)
Some other places (apartments) I visited recently
This is for comparison purpose only. One in Overland (this apartment), this unit in a duplex in St. Ann, and one in Berkeley (near UMSL). Note I don’t recommend those. I visited those places because I was helping a neighbor looking for place to stay.
If you are shopping for houses in the St. Louis Area
Personally I like to get an quick overview if I am moving to a new place. Below are two excellent sources.
YouTube: If You’re Moving to St. Louis, MO WATCH THIS – St. Louis Area Explained (Jacob from the Living in St Louis YT channel, note Jacob is a realtor and a content creator)
St. Louis’ hottest neighborhoods for singles, professionals, and families (by Peter Lu Team)
This probably should be the series 2 of Ladue high school, we are coming, series I is here and I wrote it about 9 months ago.
Now it’s real – which means, every morning, I have to be patient about the traffic on Warson road. And I am very proud to announce: so far I didn’t lose my cool ha ha 🙂 Though in one morning, I told my 14 year old it’s probably for her to ride bike when we were stuck near the stop sign at Warson and Conway.
Sports and schedule
This whole actually started in the summer, because my 14 year old took two online classes (health and PE), via Launch. Both are fairly intense courses, and more than once in our China and Hong Kong trip, including in Hong Kong, I had to walk with my 14 year old to make sure she gets enough steps or make the Garmin heart rate monitor happy. We actually started from St. Louis in late June 🙂
We encouraged her to sign up varsity sports. And I quickly realized the Cross Country program is more demanding than I thought. Btw, a little fun during the training (instagram :-).
At the same time, she decided (we ok’ed) her not doing the auditioning for YPOP (YPCO and YPSO) this school year at Webster University Community Music School. We don’t want to or try to hit at every pitch, as the old baseball saying goes (and Warren Buffett likes to say it many times).
What’s next
I can see she definitely has more homework. Also due to the Cross Country practice after school, she would feel tired and tended to do “doom scrolling” (I assume it’s TikTok and YT Shorts) instead of working on the homework right away. That would push her bed time to a time that her mom cannot tolerate.
Odds and Ends
There are a lot more of those in High School. One thing is about the volunteering and tracking hours – because it may help the college application/admission down the road. Also clubs and other extra-curriculum activities – I guess there may be implications to college application too, among other things. It basically create more work and put some more pressure on the kids/family.
(Update 09-06-2025) Came across this from Ladue Middle School website.
Math Acceleration
Please review this document regarding Math Acceleration at LMS. If you have questions, please contact Mrs. Sarah Schwartz, Assistant Principal and liaison to the math department, at xxxxxx
(Update 05-25-2025) It appears our younger daughter mostly caught up with her peers in this school year in terms of math. She accelerated in the beginning of 2024/2025 school year – instead of taking the 5th grade regular math, she was doing both 5th and 6th grade math in this school year.
Another note: our older daughter who is entering 10th grade in the coming school year 2025/2026, will attempt the math acceleration test again over the summer. But we as parents are asked to attend a Zoom session this coming week – probably something related to the test.
(Original 08-24-2024) I am not 100% sure how much the below section is applicable to the kids in the Ladue School nowadays. Couple things though:
1) Math is mostly a universal kind of course, meaning, there is no American math, or Chinese math, or Indian math,… there is only one math: we want our kids to learn the right math, not the wrong one (wrong math is not math, it’s probably more like a fiction 🙂
2) No pain no gain. I am not saying “work harder” is the most important. But the kid is expected to do some work, not just reading through the textbook.
My own math learning journey
I talked a little on math and math acceleration on my own math learning journey on my blog post – My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子 . Here is what I said:
……Related to that, my class got a very well known counselor and he was pretty strict too. He is unconventional in some ways, for example, he was math teacher, but he rarely gives lecture. He gave us a lot of homework instead, basically we learned ourselves through doing those homework. We joked the homework is never ending. Because as soon as we finish some, he would give out new ones 🙁 I recall some kids really struggled because they are not used to the pace, the work and I am guessing due to lack of instructions. I am not saying the teacher is all bad. Maybe he was not the best teacher for some of the kids. For me I think I learned self-study in his system……
In Chinese below
……与此相关的是，我班有一位非常有名的辅导员，他也很严格。他在某些方面不按常规，例如，他是数学老师，但他很少讲课。他给了我们很多功课，基本上我们都是通过做功课来学习的。我们开玩笑说作业永无止境。因为一旦我们完成一些，他就会给出新的:-(我记得有些孩子真的很挣扎，因为他们不习惯节奏，工作，我猜是由于缺乏指导。我不是说老师都不好。也许他不是一些孩子最好的老师。对我来说，我认为我在他的系统中学会了自学……
I recall I was usually one grade ahead in terms of math, for example, when I was at grade 6, I learned grade 7 contents myself,… and so on. I wasn’t the most advanced kid on math acceleration – I recall one kid in my class finished all high school math when he was at 8th grade (the last year of middle school). Again we don’t have a formal math acceleration program, but I think probably half the class (we have about 50 kids in our class, so that means 25 kids), were able to have a pace like I had. That’s the main acceleration that I did. I don’t recall do anything extra at elementary school, for high school, I may have done some on my own (don’t recall exactly), plus the thing I mentioned below. But I do recall in terms of math education, the math teacher at my 5th grader left me impression: at one time, he put up a chart that ranks all the kids’ math quizzes. I was the top student. I understand this is likely illegal here in today’s America, and I don’t know if it’s legit in China nowadays. And imagine how the kids ranked towards the bottom would feel. But at the time, it did boost my confidence on my math. Also note: I moved from my village school to this town school at the beginning of my 5th grade: so I was also a new student there trying to fit in.
At the freshman year of my high school, I was very fortunate to have a math teacher who I like, and he also thought highly of my math skills, for some reason 🙂 I think probably because I did okay in the math competition at the local level. Anyway I was invited to the training for math competition in the summer break. Basically another very good math teacher gave us (probably 4 kids) extra lesson for a week or two. That was probably the highlight of my math journey.
Math and Math Acceleration at Ladue Schools
This is the district web page for Math education
And the School Board documentation (power point) on Math Acceleration: so board does have some consideration on this topic. This is mostly for elementary school students.
Math Acceleration at LMS. Btw, quite a bit of useful information on curriculum including Math at this LMS web page.
My Observations
Mainly from our two daughters, and plus other friends’ kid.
Why Accelerate?
Or Benefits of math acceleration. Right now, the main thing I can see is the kid get to take the Calculus, and the Physics/Chemistry curriculum that requires Calculus, also some other AP courses such as AP Statistics. Most of those STEM courses have prerequisites, and if a kid takes the math in regular pace, eventually he/she won’t have much time to take the mentioned AP courses above.
But, personally I don’t think AP courses are “do or die” for kids during college applications/admissions. Note my older kid is going to be freshman in HS this fall, so take my advice for what it worth 🙂 (Update 09-03-2024): I read from another Ladue mom that she basically said similar things regarding AP courses: don’t go to the AP arms race, take some if applicable, and show that one is capable of higher-level learning during college application.
What are we hope to achieve on kids’ math
Some of the people in the Spoede Elementary School know that I was involved in the Math Fact Scholars here for quite a few years. Personally I think both the math facts and the problem solving are important. When I grew up in China, we had to memorize the multiplication table, and all that. I understand we are at different times and different country, and I came across this tweet just today – it described some of the phenomena here in the math education in the USA, unfortunately. Let me paste the image below.
Personally I really hope we can go back to this. I also pasted one of the pictures below.
Back to the topic, I think I like to see a few things on my kid’s math.
Please note all this is possible. Again to get to there, instead of “being dreadful of math (or substitute with any other subject”), needs the work and collaboration between, kids, teachers (school) and parents.
Last but not least, I want to leave a positive story at the end. In my recent trip to China, we go to this “bun store” quite frequently every morning, the lady who probably got education level no higher than high school, is a math or calculation wizard, she doesn’t use calculator, she can come up with a total as soon as we ordered the “bao zi”. Her mental math is way better than me: how did she get this good? Practice, practice, practice. This is also the slogan we say at Math Fact Scholars program.
A math (algebra) visualization tool – mathway
Bumped into it as this morning my 14 year old asked me a question related to this. Her question is about the “parabola shape and formula”, or how they become narrow or wide. For me I think I probably learned this about 40 years ago (at my 6th or 7th grade, 7th grade more likely). So “in Google I trust” and I found this.
This seems somewhat like AI (or ChatGPT) and also I was a bit surprised to find this is owned by the public company Chegg and the market cap of $CHGG is quite small – (assume they are leading edu tech company, this sector is probably very much segmented).
PS: Now I think the graph calculator probably has this function too. I didn’t have the graph calculator 39 years ago in China – saw it at graduate school at Rolla about 27 years ago
What is it? (overview)
It’s a “practice and timed test combo” for math fact, plus some word problems (problem solving). It’s owned by Diana D and she has run this program in the area for about 18+ years. Some people may compare it with Kumon, Mathnasium etc. I don’t have much knowledge on the latter. I do have a little knowledge on Kumon and I think MFS is probably not as much work as Kumon, while MFS also usually has more parents involvement. I vaguely recall we do have one kid switched from Kumon to MFS recently.
How does it work? (workbooks and timed tests)
The kids work on the workbooks at home, with the help from the grownups from time to time. Every Tuesday morning (if the school is in session), we have timed testing sessions between 8:15 and 8:45 am in the Spoede gym.
How can I order the workbooks for the kid(s)?
Here is web order form (You will need the SSA MTK credentials to log in). There is also financial assistance available through school counselors and SSA (the information is also on the web form).
We have an email box: also, if you like to text or call, my mobile phone number is 314 540 2721
Why we are getting the same workbooks (or duplicate workbooks)?
The workbooks for the blue ribbon/bronze medal level are the same, ditto for silver/gold medals. The bronze and gold level tests are 2 minutes long, blue ribbon and silver are 3 minutes. I think the Bronze has 18 problems; Silver and Gold have 36 problems. The blue ribbon has 10 problems: it goes from +1 to +10, -1 to -10. Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels all have a final exam (mixed numbers).
Also, Kindergartener and 1st grader usually start from Blue Ribbon, 2nd and 3rd grader start from Bronze level, and the 4th grader starts from Silver (I listed below as standalone question too, to make sure the message get crossed).
Note there are no duplicates in the trophy level workbooks. Btw, the trophy levels goes from Platinum, Fraction, Decimals and Percents.
Which medal level does my kid start?
Note this information is also in the SSA MTK website, the MFS web order form, as well as above. To reiterate here, K to 1st grader start from blue ribbon (addition and subtraction), 2nd and 3rd graders start from bronze medal (addition and subtraction), and 4th grader start from silver medal (multiplication and division). Please talk to us if you feel your kid needs to go faster or go slower.
How much time should a kid practice per day?
Again each kid is different. Typically it’s a good idea for a kid to do a few pages of practice on the workbook, and each page could take a few minutes to (up to) 15 minutes (including the time the parent take a look at the work, check the answers, explain if applicable). There is no need to compare the times a kid work on the workbooks with another kid. Personally I think a good learning habit will help the kid down the road: e.g., focus, don’t get distracted by the TikTok, reading and understand the instructions or a word problem, and so on. This will also help them when they move up grades.
Should I send my kids every Tuesday morning?
No, you don’t have to. You/your kid are welcome to join the testing sessions at any Tuesday morning when we have them, but this is not a necessary condition. Just come when your kid is ready and also when the time slot works for you/your family. One analogy if I may add, is in a baseball/software game, the batter only swings at the ball when he/she feels there is a good chance he/she can get a hit (home run, single, double and so on).
I do understand for some kids, there are some social interactions there as well – we are okay with that, as long as the kid doesn’t cause disturbance to other kids who are more serious. Sometimes we ask am unwilling kid to sit on the steps by the stage and wait for 8:35 am when their classroom is available.
What if I (or my kid) cannot make it to the Tuesday mornings’ tests? (I used Italics to hilight below)
I understand this could be a real issue for some parents, sometimes the mornings could be a bit hectic, with the morning rush for school or work. We still want to encourage our kids to work on the workbooks and if possible, do some timed tests.
If you are confident that your kids are doing the work at home, and you may give the kiddo a timed test too, just using the practice sheet on the workbooks. If you believe the kids can benefit from getting a medal or a trophy etc., please bring in the workbooks and highlight the testing sheet, and we can award the medal or trophy after verifications. In fact during pandemic because we could not have a large group gathering and test sessions, we did something similar.
My personal observation is most kids (and maybe parents too) would value the medal or trophy more than a toy or some other material rewards.
How can you (I, we) help?
Help the kiddos work on the workbooks at home. Talk to them, look at the workbooks from time to time. Encourage them. Better yet (not necessary, but always appreciated from an organizer’s point of view, believe it or not, I have been working as volunteers for 8+ years), please volunteer for the program. This is a program 99% run by the parents volunteers. We need volunteers to run the test: grading, manage the test box, help filing the test papers, to the backend work: processing the order, ordering the workbook and testing copies, reviewing the test papers, and recording them in the google spreadsheet that we publish etc.
I do understand many parents have busy work schedule and they may not join the test sessions. Again please help when you can: there are behind of the scenes work (see the backend work above). Also, I noticed many kids are happy to see their parents in school volunteering. If your work schedule doesn’t allow for in person volunteering, or other volunteering tasks, don’t worry – we will try to treat your kids just like how we treat our kids. Our only ask is please tell your kids we practice Spoede R. O. C. K. S. (Respect, Ownership, Cooperation, Kindness, and Safety) while we are in the gym.
What is the 1st test PDF file?
It’s the 1st test a kid is expected to work on at a particular morning. Again please don’t compare your kid with her/his friend.
Occasionally we have kids that skipped certain tests, due to various reasons. We try to ask them to make up the missing tests – it’s just a way to train their good leaning habit. Not sure take shortcuts etc. We also believe in this step by step approach. In the years I volunteers at the program, it appears to me the kids did the workbook, and not skipping the tests, are usually progressing better. Somewhat like the story/the race of the tortoise vs the rabbit.
What if my kid skipped a test or a few tests?
No worries, this is much less severe than say, we adults crossed a red light or stop sign without stopping. We will try to ask the kid to make up the test: even if we always awarded a medal. Our goal, again, is to not to punish someone, rather to help our kids to build a good learning habit (including doing things step by step and so on), as well as help them to get more comfortable with math, as well as help them get more confidence on math. Sometimes the right amount of confidence is a bit tricky.
Sometimes the mistake is caused by us, we could run out of testing paper for a specific test. We would tell the kid to move on to the next one if that’s the case. Or they can choose to pause there too.
Is Math Fact still relevant in today’s post Chatgpt world?
Yes I think so. Personally I think math is just a fundamental skills along with reading and writing, and math is closely associated with logical thinking, and it won’t be out of date in this TikTok / google search / Chatgpt world. Good old human intelligence will beat AI 🙂
Also, refer to this – All The Math We Need For Trading Stocks. My point is math is extremely important and useful for our daily lives, from personal finance to cooking (think about the recipe and ingredients), to career choices (more than engineering and sciences, for sure).
Our goal: help and encourage our kids to practice math, both in terms of the math fact, calculation, as well as problem solving. Hopefully they will get more comfortable and confident on math with this program (the practice and the timed tests). And all this will lay a good foundation when they move on to middle school, high school and beyond.
What if I have more questions?
We have an email box: also, if you like to text or call, my mobile phone number is 314 540 2721
Last but not least, I wrote about this last school year too, and I decided to start this post as more people (some new) asked me the FAQs above.
There are a few ways to solve for it. I am aware of 3.
3. Use the equation approach. Kids usually started to learn equations from algebra, which in the USA is usually from grade 6, 7 or 8 (again this depends on the school and the kid’s math level).
For the 1st problem: x + y = 1.10 and x -y = 1.00
(add those two equations together) =>
x = 1.05 and y = 0.05
Bonus point: try to solve the 2nd problem using the equation approach.
Bonus problems : try any of the problems in my collection.
Also, here is one more using bar model.
One more problem, solution is shown below. We have 3 boxes
holding total of 4,000 grams of candy
We know the 1st box holds twice as much as the 2nd box, and 3rd box holds the amount of 2nd box plus 60 grams.
A: 2nd box has 985 grams. 1st box has 1,970 grams and 3rd box has 1,055 grams. Bar model is shown below.
One more interesting (hopefully not too hard 🙂 problem, curtesy of PragmaticProgrammers (https://twitter.com/pragprog)
Have fun with math as you solve the integer number for the question mark:
🐂 = 🐟 – 3
🐂 = 🦃 + 2
🐟 = 3 X 🦃 + 3
🦃 + ? = 7
(Update 10-20-2023) I worked with my 4th grader on 2 more word problems. I don’t think they are easy problems for a 4th grader. But at the other hand, I can understand why she whines about those type of problems, and while I don’t appreciate her whining. I will do my part: try to explain my thinking, and hopefully she will get better solving those.
On a separate yet related note, since I just had parent teacher conference with my 8th grader math teacher, and had conversations with my 8th grader, one thing I can say for many parents is: try to hang in there. Try to help the kid so that he/she don’t fall behind too much.
(Update 11-16-2023) I created a MFS FAQ blog post today: I used some of the content below, plus some of the common questions being asked in last year or so. In the future, I will try to maintain/update that one.
(Update 11-02-2023)
A few parents asked about the “1st test” PDF file. It’s the first test a kid will start taking in a particular Tuesday morning (this is just for reference). Each kid is different, so no need to compare your kid with her/his friend. That being said, I believe practice on workbooks is equally important, if not more, compared to the “timed tests” we do on Tuesday mornings. Last but not least, a kid doesn’t have to come every Tuesday morning for testing sessions. Please bring the kid when it works for you/your family and when the kid is ready.
Btw, here is web order form (you will need the SSA MTK credentials to log in).
(Update 09-07-2023)
I just realized today that a couple families re-ordered the same workbooks, and I assume it’s not their intention to reorder (I will re-confirm with each on an individual basis). || Please don’t reorder the same workbooks.
We (the kids) pick up where they left off. For example, last school year, a kid ends up Gold +10, he/she will start from Gold +11. We are not going back. If the kids have the workbooks (in most cases I believe it’s the case), he/she continues to work on it.
The only reason I can think of why you may want to order the same workbooks, is, for example, you lost the workbooks for some reason and / or really wanted the kids to have more practice.
If in doubt, email or text me before placing the order.
(Original 09-2022)
The ordering form is here: the main difference from earlier is now we offer packages only. At least from the Membership Toolkit (MTK) website at this time. Note you will need to register at this MTK website in order to see the form. For some parents I think they may already have the workbooks, or they need workbooks that are not 100% same with the package, please let us know (email: spoedemathfactscholars@gmail.com; text 314 540 2721), and we will try to work out something. After ordering, the workbooks will arrive in about a week. My current thinking is have the teacher giving it to the kid: but we can discuss delivery (in the Spoede school boundary) or pickup as needed too.
Also, if you prefer pay via check / cash, or if you need to register your kids outside of those pre-defined packages (this happens sometimes, due to various reasons), please fill out the registration form here, and bring the check / cash to me (I will text you the address).
Last but not least, a special note for those who participated and purchased the workbooks before the pandemic shutdown. The kids were kindergarteners and 1st graders in Spring 2020, and because we have 2+ years break, the kids are 3rd and 4th graders now. They are welcome to come back for testing for bronze or silver medal level tests, respectively. If there is any question regarding their appropriate test level, or proceed further along in the program, please let us know (again please note the contact info above).
Overview
The kids will practice their workbooks at home. I probably should emphasize that for many kids, especially at the beginning, parents will likely need to get involved, mainly via encouragement, also check the work to make sure the kids did it correctly. The test will be held on (most) every Tuesday morning at about 8:15 to 8:45 am, before school. Once the kid completes the workbook, and passes all the tests in a medal or trophy level, the medal or trophy will be awarded.
The test emphasizes both accuracy and speed on math facts. There are some problem solving (word problem) at the trophy level (platinum, fraction, decimal and percents). For blue ribbon / bronze level there are addition and subtraction, for silver and gold there are multiplication and division. The workbooks for blue ribbon / bronze medal level are the same, ditto for silver / gold medals. The bronze and gold level tests are 2 minutes long, silver is 3 minutes. I think they all have 18 problems. All trophy level tests are 3 minutes. At platinum level there are sometimes two approaches to perform calculation: the traditional method which is more commonly taught and used, and the mental approach which basically we do it in our mind (our heart) without writing out the intermediary results during calculation (sometimes we call it borrowing or lending). Those distinction sometimes caused confusion for the kids, and if parents need some more explanation, please let us know.
The skill levels is explained here. Please note Math Fact Scholars program is owned by Math Fact Scholars, LLC. SSA is just helping run it at Spoede school.
Volunteered needed: this cannot run without volunteers. We need volunteers to run the test: grading, manage the test box, help filing the test papers, to the backend work: processing the order, ordering the workbook and testing copies, reviewing the test papers, and recording them in the google spreadsheet that we publish etc.
Below are the dates:
Oct 4th
Oct 11th
Oct 18th
Oct 25th
Nov 1th
Nov 15th
Nov 22nd
Nov 29th
Dec 6th
Dec 13th
Dec 20th
Jan 10th
Jan 17th
Jan 24th
Jan 31st
Feb 7th
Feb 14th
Feb 21st
Feb 28th
Mar 7th
Mar 14th
Mar 28th
April 11th
April 18th
April 25th
May 2nd
May 9th
May 16th
PS: obviously math and problem solving are important for kids academic and grownups career / daily lives. I am a strong believer of math, you can see read from my recent post here. At the same time we need to keep in mind math facts and speedy calculation are just a part of the equation (no pun intended). Each kid develops in her / his unique, as parents we should encourage our kids to try harder, at the same time don’t be overly zealous when we saw a friend of our kid got some medal or trophy. At this day of age of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and so on, I just want to put it there and make sure parents put thing in perspective.