Math Club

2025-2026 Chairs: Daiki Sasaki

No In-person class for the 2025-2026 school year.

This school year, Math Club hosts three math contests, open to only Medina Elementary students. Registration information will be announced in October.

AMC 8 (4th and 5th grade) – Mid January
Math Kangaroo (1st-5th grade) - Thursday, 3/19/2025; Limited number of seats.
Math is Cool (4th and 5th grade) – Mid March

Jump to: Competitions | Recaps

Info Night

September 9th or 10th, 2025. The club chairs will share information about the club and answer any questions. Please join us! Both parents and students are welcome to attend!

Math Competitions

Students are not automatically registered for any math competitions. Please read the following
information regarding each competition.

Volunteers for math competition days will be needed. Please email mathclub@medinapta.org if you would like to volunteer.

Math Kangaroo

Thursday, March 19th, 2026

Medina Math Club is excited to host Math Kangaroo 2026 Competition.

If you are new to Math Kangaroo please read Math Kangaroo History. At our center the competition will be in-person, proctored by Medina staff and parent volunteers.

The 2025 Competition will take place on Thursday, March 19th, 2026 at Medina Elementary School. The competition starts at 3:15pm. Registration is open for all 1st to 5th grade Medina Elementary students. We have a limited number of spots, and it's on a first come first served basis, so please register ASAP.

Note: The competition at Medina Elementary School is only for Medina ES students. If students from other schools sign up at our location, they will be removed with no refund.

In brief, the competition is:

75-minute multiple choice test.
24 questions (grades 1 - 4), 8 questions for 3 points, 8 questions for 4 points and 8 questions for 5 points.
30 questions (grades 5 - 12), 10 questions for 3 points, 10 questions for 4 points and 10 questions for 5 points.
Most questions are word problems; they are chosen by The International Math Kangaroo Committee annually.
Every student qualifies who can read and work independently at his/her school grade level.
Each registered student has free access to online video solutions for questions from previous years.
Each in-person or online center participant receives a T-shirt, an electronic certificate, and a gift.
The national winners (first 20 ranks) and state winners (first 3 ranks) are publicly recognized on our website.
Winners receive medals, ribbons, magnets, and electronic or in-kind prizes after the ranking announcement. Several sophomore students are awarded with math camps. Senior high school students with consistent top rankings in several consecutive years receive college grants.

Students can practice their skills and know how to solve Math Kangaroo questions through the complimentary sample questions from previous years, free online video solutions (available after register), free and paid workshops, books, and other study material. Practice material is available at: https://mathkangaroo.org/mks/practice/

Registration Details

Please come back in October.

AMC 8

Mid January, 2026

What is AMC 8?

AMC 8 is a 40-minute, 25-question multiple choice examination. The material is designed for students in grades 6, 7, and 8. If you have any questions about whether this contest is appropriate for your child, please email mathclub@medinapta.org. You can learn more about the AMC 8 by visiting their website.

This academic year, we will hold an in-person competition in Mid January, 2026 at Medina Elementary School.

While the exam is 40 minutes long, students should expect the entire testing process (including check-in,verification, and check-out) to take at least 70 minutes.

Some AMC 8 Practice Problems can be found at:

https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/AMC_8_Problems_and_Solutions

Registration Details:

Registration is open for all 4th to 5th grade Medina Elementary students. Please come back in October for more information.

On Competition Day:

Students are only allowed: writing utensils, blank paper, rulers, and erasers.

Students are not allowed anything else, including: calculators, smartwatches, phones, computers, compasses, protractors, or graph paper.

Students are only allowed bathroom breaks- no other types of breaks.

Please email mathclub@medinapta.org ahead of the competition day if your child requires
accommodation for physical/learning disabilities.

Math Is Cool (MIC)

Math Club is excited to organize another Math contest - Math is Cool 2026. This is open to 4th and 5th graders. You can find more info on their website here.

Students can choose to participate in teams (usually 4 people, but 3 is acceptable too) or individually. Each team should have a parent acting as the team's coach. The team coach is the POC for us to communicate any team/contest related info, e.g. student MIC ID. The team coach is also responsible to understand, communicate contest rules of different rounds to the students and get them familiar with the instructions before the actual contest. The team coach is encouraged to organize practice sessions with students on the team.

Student may compete as an individual in their grade level or any higher grade. However, a student may compete as part of a team at only one grade level. (i.e. a 4th grader can compete at level 4 and level 5 as individuals. A 5th grader can compete at level 5 as individuals. But if the student participates in teams, he/she can only choose to complete either at his grade level or above.)

Our school can bring up to 4 teams for grade 4, and 4 teams for grade 5. It will be on a first come first serve basis, so start forming a team as soon as possible.

Registration Details:

Registration is open for all 4th to 5th grade Medina Elementary students. Please come back in October for more information.

Policies

Updated: Auguest 16, 2025

BEHAVIOR:

Intentional violent behavior directed at another individual during the class or competitions (including another student, teacher, coach/instructor, parent, or volunteer) and resulting in physical harm is grounds for immediate removal from that club or competition without refund. Medina PTA retains the discretion to remove this student from all other enrolled afterschool clubs/programs and prevent this student from registering for future afterschool programs in the same school year.

Parents and students are expected to behave respectfully to each other and the coaches/instructors:

If the club chair determines that a student’s behavior is disruptive during the program/club, or the student is consistently disrespectful, a warning will be issued to the student and parent. After the warning, a second offense will result in removal of the student from the club with no refund, unless the club chair decides to issue a second warning. The chair my also require the parent to provide full-time adult supervision of the student for the duration of the club. The adult supervisor must be a PTA member and have a BSD background check. A third offense will result in removal of the student from the club program with no refund.
If the club chair determines that a parent’s behavior is disruptive or consistently disrespectful, a warning will be issued to the parent. After the warning, a second offense will result in removal of that parent’s child from afterschool clubs with no refund.
At the discretion of Medina PTA, any withdrawal due to disruptive or disrespectful behavior may also affect the family’s ability to register for future afterschool programs.

PICK-UP: Our parent volunteers are required to stay until the last child is picked up from class. Please respect our volunteers’ time by picking your child up promptly at dismissal time unless your child is staying at Medina Elementary with the Boys & Girls Club. If you wish to permit your child to sign him/herself out from class and walk/bike home, you must complete the Medina PTA Permission Slip for Self-Checkout of Afterschool Clubs 2024-2025 found on our website, and return it to our Math Club Co-Chairs. Repeated late pickups may result in withdrawal from Math Club or any maty competitions with no refund, and you may forfeit the ability to register for future afterschool programs.

2021-2022 Recap

What a fun and unusual year! Math Club was held in the cafeteria and the library, and students. In the cafeteria, students worked on socially-distanced personal white boards in groups of 4-6. In the library, students practiced presenting solutions to each other.

Math Club hosted three competitions, all virtually: AMC 8 (thank you to Mrs. Behan again for proctoring!), Math is Cool, and Math Kangaroo.

Thank you to our coaches, Haiqing Deng and Vivian Donner, and our full-time volunteers, Rongzhi Lu, V Hsiao, Honghui Guo, and Shirley Tsang!

2020-2021 RECAP

Math Club had a great year! For the first time ever, we ran club meetings on two days: Tuesdays and Thursdays after school to try to accommodate as many students as possible. Coach Dave introduced topics, students split into small groups of 4-5 in breakout rooms to discuss math problems, and then we met back in the main room to see what groups had come up with.

In the fall, Math Club hosted the AMC 8 math contest virtually for any interested Medina Elementary student. A big thank you to Mrs. Behan for proctoring the contest on Teams. In the spring, we organized teams for the WSMC Math Olympiad.

Because there was so much interest in Math Club and we had a long waitlist, Math Club ran additional Zoom sessions in May and June after our regularly-scheduled club meetings ended, open to all students at Medina Elementary. These sessions covered various topics, including past AMC 8 questions.

Finally, thank you to our full-time volunteers for helping make virtual Math Club a success: Angela Wang, Cathie Jing, Cony Wong, Ekta Jiwani, Haiqing Deng, Joanna Jiang, Li Ge, Samantha Wang, Su Su, and V Hsiao.

Your 2020-2021 Math Club Co-Chairs,

Coach Dave Vincent and Maxine Lee

2019-2020 recap

First thank you to all students and parents who were interested in the Medina Math Club and supported our effort. As a club managed and coached by parent volunteers only, we are sorry to turn away students in the waiting list after full enrollment is reached. We greatly appreciate the support and understanding from the Medina ES community.

The 2019-2020 Medina Math Club was a year-long club for Medina Elementary School students in 4th and 5th grade. The main objective is to practice and participate in math competitions, including AMC 8, Math is Cool, WSMC Blaine, etc. This school year we participated in AMC 8 in the fall, while two students achieved Honor Roll Certificate (top 5% nationally). Although the major math competition season in spring was cut short due to school closure, we were able to participate in the Math is Cool 5th Grade Championship in February. The students achieved 8th place in the highest division and qualified for the Math is Cool Masters competition (unfortunately that was canceled later).

As some competitions moved online after March, the Math Club took every opportunity to bring them to our students. Our 4th grade teams took the challenge at the Math is Cool 4th Grade Championship online and achieved 5th place school for Medina. The results can be found on their homepage at http://www.academicsarecool.com/ . Math Kangaroo is an individual competition which switched online after multiple attempts to postpone. Our students jumped on and several completed with nationally top ranked scores. The Math Club also administered the Math League 4th and 5th grade competitions through email for the students to complete at home. The Medina ES team put our name on the top places again with 3rd and 5th place nationally for 4th and 5th grades respectively. The official results are posted online at https://www.mathleague.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118&Itemid=84 .

Lastly, thank you to all coaches and volunteers of the Math Club for your contribution to the Medina ES community. Thank you especially to two volunteer coaches, David Vincent and Zheyi Chen. They have been coaching the club for the whole school year even though their children are not in the club. David is further taking over the effort of continuing the Math Club in the coming years.

Your 2019-2020 Math Club Co-Chairs,

Jianbo Peng and Peiwei Cao