Schoolwide News

We've reached the end of our final Problem of the Month for the year! Our May puzzle, First Rate, explored the mathematics of rates — comparing two brothers racing up a staircase, two runners covering different distances, two people picking up trash together, and even the shifting distance between a quarterback and receiver on the football field. I love these problems because they offer an entry point for our youngest mathematicians while still challenging our most experienced ones.

It feels fitting to close the year with a problem about rates, because looking back, this year has been its own kind of race, though the goal was never speed. We started in September with Party Time, then worked our way through wheels and squirrels, triangles and tiles, and so much more. Each problem opened a different door into mathematics: some into geometry, some into algebra, some into patterns and generalization. I hope these problems were able to reach everyone, in both interest and ability. 

That range is the whole point. The goal was to increase the level of mathematical thinking schoolwide. As math education researchers such as Jo Boaler and Carol Dweck remind us, struggle is where learning happens. I've watched students this year surprise themselves by reaching levels they didn't think they could, and that growth is what we celebrate most.

Thank you to everyone who took part this year: the students from every grade, the teachers, the administrators, and the parents who pulled up a chair at the kitchen table to puzzle alongside their children. You turned a set of math problems into something bigger: a community that thinks together. This was the goal from the beginning.

If you'd like to revisit First Rate or check your thinking against mine, the solution key is here. As always, it explores just one approach per problem, so feel free to debate, rework, and discover your own paths to the answers.
Thank you for a wonderful year of problem-solving. It's been a joy puzzling through these with you, and I can't wait to do it all again next year!