Blue Sky: An Acton Academy recently held their first Canada Math Kangaroo Contest. In total, 6,386 students participated in 51 locations across Canada. There were around 20 participants from Cornwall and SD&G.
“Blue Sky strives to create a space and provide opportunities for students to pursue their passions and achieve a level of personal excellence,” shared Sarah McCullough, “By hosting various public events for local youth, for example our Business Fair, a Spelling Bee, an Art Exhibition, our Summer STEAM Camp, and this Canada Kangaroo Math Contest, we are providing these same opportunities for children outside of our school community.”
Jovan Bharti was 1st place regional winner for grade 3 and the first one who finished writing the test!
“Jovan was very excited to discover that he won an award. He enjoyed preparing for the contest by completing all of the practice tests,” shared his mother, Rani Bharti, “I believe he learned that it can be rewarding and fun to take part in these types of activities.”
Denith Silva was second place regional winner for grade 3. He also participated in the Blue Sky Children’s Business fair hosted in November at the Benson Center.
Valentyne Shumova was first place regional winner for grade six. Her family arrived from Ukraine in September. Before moving to Canada, Shumova participated in the Kangaroo math contest in her Ukrainian school.
“I didn’t do anything special to prepare for the Kangaroo math contest. I have liked mathematics since early childhood, I was always keen on doing sums and solving math problems,” said Shumova, “I think that I have a good result because I love math. There was some information in the test I didn’t know and I just used my intuition to get the correct answer. Now, I would like to study more mathematics here.”
The Math Kangaroo Contest is an international math contest for grades 1 to 12, with over 6 million participants worldwide. The contest originated in France in 1991 and its goal is to promote mathematical thinking and stimulate an interest in math, by giving students an opportunity to compare their abilities against the abilities of other students from around the world.
“The Canada Math Kangaroo Contest is a really fun way to be challenged in mathematical thinking. Blue Sky students used the tests from previous years, which are posted on their website, to practice and understand how to identify the best approach to solving the problems,” McCullough explained, “The questions require you to think outside of the box, and that really fits with our model of education. Our students loved it, and we look forward to hosting this event annually in March.”
