By Deb Risden
A group of eight Liberty Tree Academy third through fifth grade students joined a math league for the first time this school year. Mary Tafoya, math intervention/coach, recognized a need for more math challenges for the school’s gifted and talented students. “I wanted to encourage and motivate them in their giftedness in math. They love math and they are the pioneers of the future,” Tafoya said. She worked with the elementary school’s gifted and talented teacher to provide competition opportunities for qualified students.
Liberty Tree Academy is an El Paso County School District 49 kindergarten through 12th grade charter school with more than 600 students.
The contests are run through MathLeague.org, an organization that operates online and in-person contests nationally and internationally for elementary, middle and high school students. Tafoya said Colorado does not have in-person competitions, so they participate virtually with students in the U.S. “It is good we are able to represent Colorado in math throughout the country,” Tafoya said.
The newly formed team has demonstrated success early in its inception. Tafoya said three-fourths of the team have placed either first, second or third place in competitions. She said six are qualified to participate in the state level competitions that take place in the spring.
The students compete in timed challenges on Saturdays and have various qualifiers each month. Tafoya said they have a variety of problems to solve in number sense, sprint series and algebra. “It’s very intense,” she said. “The students use the same math test for the competitions, but they’re only scored in their grade level. My third grader is doing the same test as sixth grade, but she is scored within the third grade. There are four-minute, very intense math problems to solve and the team competitions are about 10-minutes per problem.”
The students can access IXL, an online math skills program. “They do different skills like division, algebra, addition, subtraction, geometry — all the different math functions on their own using IXL,” Tafoya said. The program provides practice as well as instruction for learning skills.
Tafoya and the school raise funds for student supplies and prizes. They are a “Colorado Gives” participant and welcome donations to the program (https://www.coloradogives.org/story/Ltamatholympics).
LTA is hoping to expand the program to include middle and high school grade level students in the future, Tafoya said.
She makes the competition fun for the students with different activities designed to hone their skills. “We’re doing math jeopardy right now for play money,” she said. The students also meet weekly at Math Club for 30 minutes. Tafoya keeps them motivated with prizes and competitions within the IXL tool.
“They are having fun. They love what they do,” Tafoya said. “I tell them they’re exceptional and this is a way for you to compete doing something you love.”
Eight elementary school gifted and talented program students are the first at Liberty Tree Academy to participate in MathLeague.org competitions: back, left to right — Cara Ballard, Michael McArdle, Ben Catt, Gabby McCollum and David Akande; front, left to right — Theo Jacobsen, Tiago Silva and Precious Akande.
