La Cygne Elementary's first math bee spawns two math-offs

Madison, a contestant in the La Cygne Elementary School "A Math Rumble in the Jungle" on Friday, April 25, waits for her math problem in one of the opening rounds of the contest. She would finish the bee in fourth place. (Photos by Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

LA CYGNE – Eleven of La Cygne Elementary School’s top math students took on a challenge on Friday, April 25, to see who was the top mathematician in the school.

With “A Math Rumble in the Jungle” backdrop using paper decorations to create jungle foliage with lions, elephants and giraffes, the competitors from the fourth and fifith grades, were given a problem, both spoken and on the screen in front of a desk with a stack of paper and a pencil holder, and they had 60 seconds to solve the problem

Like its counterpart the spelling bee, the math be started out fairly easy with straightforward addition and subtraction problems. The students were given a practice round, then the contest began in earnest.

Max works on a problem that is given to him outloud by Linda Sylva, and it is also displayed on an electronic board.

As competitors made their way through four rounds, each round saw a student or two stumble and go out. As the rounds progressed, though, so did the difficulty of the problems. Adding and subtraction gave way to finding the quotient of numbers and then to dividing fractions by fractions.

With only four students on stage at the beginning of the fourth round, Madison and Bradley went out in that round. So to determine the third place winner, there was a head-to-head math-off, which Bradley won, earning a third-place medal.

From right, Lucas proudly hangs on to his first place medal, with Max taking second and Bradley placing third.

Finally it was time to determine the winner, pitting Max against Lucas. Max missed his first problem, but Lucas did not, and he raised his arms with fists clenched in celebration as he realized he had won. Max didn’t seem to be overly concerned with the second-place finish, and the first annual math bee at LES was in the books.

In a brief prelude to the competition, Principal Cindy Noel told the students, staff and family members in the audience that she hoped to include Parker students in the next math bee and even extend it to Prairie View Middle School students.

Contestants in La Cygne Elementary's first math bee include, front row from left, Bradley, Lucas, Saleen, Jazzelle, Gavin, Max; back row, Brandon,Tucker, Delia, Madison and Jackson.