Students at Madison Elementary School spent time outside recently studying math in a fun way - at the math Olympics. Stations were set up in the field next to the school; the first station was a paper airplane toss. Students tossed a paper airplane and measured the distance of the throw in centimeters. The final calculation was to find the team average, (total score divided by the number of team members). The next event was a sand spoon relay.

In this event, each team member was handed a spoon, then all team members formed a line near a large bucket of sand. The goal was to spoon the sand into a liter container. They passed the sand to the next person by the spoonful until the liter container was full. At end of the event they measured how many milliliters of sand the team collected. The next station was a catapult. Each student took turns working the small catapult and measuring the distance of each throw. A total team score was divided by the number in the team. The teams also participated in a building blocks station and a running relay. Children were learning math in a creative and fun way with different activities to stimulate the mind. World Photos by Madeline Steege