A Day at Muscle Shoals

Look out - here we come - all 40 of us!

Clay and Ethan deep in thought

Muscle Shoals Victories

Congratulations to the 7th and 8th grade teams on their first place finishes at Muscle Shoals.  It was a fun day all the way around.  More pictures to come.  Grissom is up next on Feb. 5.  

7th Grade - 1st Place and ciphering winner

3rd place overall

8th Grade - 1st Place and ciphering winner (72 points)

 

 

 

3rd Place overall 

Miss Pioneer Pageant Saturday

Good luck to all the math teamers competing in the pageant on Saturday, Jan. 29.  The pageant starts at 6 pm.  Hope all you girls (and guys) have fun.  Enjoy the time spent with your friends.

Congrats to Scholar's Bowl Team

The CMS Scholar's Bowl team placed 3rd at district and will be going on to state competition in February.  They went 5-2 at district in Russellville.  Good luck at state!

Important Parent Meeting - Monday, Jan. 24

Math Team Parent Meeting - Monday, Jan. 24 at 6:30 pm in the library.  Ideas and suggestions welcome.  We will discuss:

• GACS (permission slip)

• 5th and 6th grade tournament - volunteer sign-ups

• Past and Upcoming tournaments

• 7th grade math team try-outs at East, West, St. Paul's and Sacred Heart

• Banquet

Math Teams Shine at Muscle Shoals

Parent meeting - Monday, January 24 at 6:30 pm in the library

Wow!  Saturday at Muscle Shoals was our best day in overall standings.  The 8th grade team scored 72, yes 72 ciphering points.  Quite a different kind of ciphering for the 7th grade and you still placed first.  Six 8th graders and 3 7th graders placed in the top ten.  Will Raney and Ben Huser took both 1st place awards.  Congratulations!  Many improved their scores from previous tournaments.  ALL of you did a great job today.  The 8th grade had 12 in the top 20.  I was concerned about being out last week because of the snow, but you all came through with flying colors.  So bright some of you had to wear shades.  Thanks for all the hard work this week and for doing so well on your TTK test.  We appreciate all the support from our parents.  I can't say enough about what it means to have you all there for the ciphering and awards.  The goody bags were extremely nice.  The notebooks with the math quotes, pins and pencils were just terrific.  Parents, thanks for being so good to our teams. 

8th Grade
1st place team Div II - 3rd overall out of 21 (best to date behind Pizitz and Discovery)
1st in ciphering (3rd overall out of 21)
Ben H. - 1st (91) would have placed 6th in Div. I
Drake - 4th (80)
Claire - 6th (76)
Ben R. - 7th (72)
Molly - 8th (70)
Seth - 9th (65)


7th Grade
1st place team Div II - 3rd overall out of 21 (best to date behind Pizitz and Berry)
Will - 1st (76) would have placed 5th in Div. I
Madelyn - 4th (66)
Noah - 6th (58)


All scores will be listed on the catsmath wiki.  Thanks again for a great day and for your behavior during ciphering and awards.

See you all at Grissom on Feb. 5.   Go Bearcats!

Susan Sellers
Proud Coach of the CMS Math Teams

Muscle Shoals - Saturday Jan. 22

Looking forward to the Muscle Shoals Tournament.  With the lay-off last week, we have been working diligently this week to be prepared.  We had two good practices with the 8th graders and I am expecting good things from the 7th grade as usual.  Remember to study the TTK sheets and go through your book or classzone.com and work problems.  The standardized tests and chapter tests in your book have good problems to work. 

We will  leave Saturday at 6:00 am, eat at Burger King on Hwy 157 and then onto Muscle Shoals.  We want the momentum from Vestavia to follow us to MS.  The possible wintry mix that we may get on Thursday night should not affect us going this Saturday.

Thanks for your hard work this week as we try to make it 2 in a row! 

Go Bearcats!

(Let it Snow!) cubed

Mary Beth and I could not wait to get out in the snow.  What a beautiful sight at our house!  We had 3 inches at 10:30 pm Sunday night.  Take a ruler tomorrow and measure the snow at your house and we'll compare when we get back to school. Enjoy the time with your family.  Good luck to all the Auburn fans!

Take some time and study for Muscle Shoals so we stay ahead of the game.  Go to classzone.com or glencoe.com for practice and study your TTK sheets. 

CMS Teams - Recognized in Cullman Times

Click here for Cullman Times picture for 8th grade and here for 7th grader.  So proud of all of you!  We will be going to Muscle Shoals in a couple of weeks.  Make the best of these two weeks and STUDY, STUDY, STUDY! 

Letter from Japan

I received a thank you card from Kodai Shimazaki, a stellar math teamer and good cipherer.  We had sent his yearbook to him last summer along with a picture his classmates had signed.  He was most appreciative and said to tell everyone hello.  Kodai's family moved to Cullman from Japan a few years ago to help train at Topre.  In December on 2009 they moved back to Japan.  He and his sister Maho, a 10th grader, are doing very well.  Kodai was quiet but had a good sense of humor.  I will remember his amazing talent in solving the Rubik's Cube. 

          Kodai, Tyler, Peyton and Bryant at the 2009 Wallace State Tournament

Good Luck on S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E

There are several math teamers competing in the school spelling bee tomorrow.  Spelling was always a favorite of mine when I was in school, as well as math team, of course.  Good spelling and writing are so important in communicating your ideas.  I watch the National Spelling Bee every year.  One year we even watched it while were eating at the Oyster House in Gulf Shores.  Good luck to all of you. 

Emma Hicks
Noah Shadix 
Will Raney
Andy Robinson
Ale'Kilgo
Seth Donaldson
Mason Isbell and Ryan Klein - my teacher aides 

AMC 8 - Interesting Statistics

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the 8th graders took the AMC 8 test in November.  The 7th grade took it as a practice for next year.  As a math person, the statistics are very interesting to me.  Click here for the details.  Below is a comparison of state results and CMS results.  Click here for the American Mathematics Competition home site.

                                 State                              CMS
Total participants       1231                                19
# of Schools                30                             ranked 9th
Highest score              25                                   21
Average score           10.26                              12.8
Average team score   48.43                               54

Drake was one of 21 (20 male and 1 female) to score 21 points or higher out of 1231 students in Alabama.
Jackson and Nicholas as well as Hope Mason were in the top 65 in the state. 

2010 AMC Top 11

The American Mathematics Test was given in November.  The top 11 are listed below.  Congratulations to everyone.  It is a challenging test with 25 problems to be completed in 40 minutes.  Drake, Jackson and Nicholas received awards for the top 3.  Many others did exceptionally well also.

1st - Drake Hollingsworth (21) Honor roll
2nd - Jackson Hill (17) Honor roll
3rd - Nicholas Fillinger (16)
4th - Seth Donaldson (15)
4th - Claire Lindsey (15)
6th - Ben Ratliff (14)
7th - Michael Bentley (13)
        Branch Hill (13)
        Ben Huser (13)
        Connor Lawrence (13)
        Caden Trelles(13)

Our average score was 12.8.