The Colonial Hills Elementary fourth-grade classes held their second annual Logic Math Olympics on March 7, 2008. The fourth-grade teachers came together and made 14 teams of six students from all of their classes, and each team had a combination of bilingual, dual and monolingual students. From the beginning there were six teams battling for first place, while the rest were not far behind. It was Team #10 who came in first place, with Team #1 coming in second place not five minutes later. There was a tie for third place between two other teams. Both runners reached the table at the same time. 

There were eight total problems that needed to be completed.  Each team started with the first problem and once their answer was declared correct by one of the teachers, a runner would collect the second problem and so on. The problems were designed to be thought provoking, multi-stepped and involved several TEKS (patterns, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions etc.).

Teachers remarked that the students were very enthusiastic and involved in the process of solving the problems. They knew that in order to move on to the next problem, their work had to show the process.  Every step had to be proven. 

When the fourth-grade teachers went back to their classrooms and talked about the event with their students, all replied that they enjoyed it.  The students felt that if they can solve those problems, they can do anything. They also said they enjoyed the prizes (first place – Sodoku puzzle book; second place – Sodoku rubik's cube; third place – mind bender puzzles).

All the teams felt like winners because of their success in solving the problems. They were all able to exchange ideas and have some input in the process. Because of its success and the students appreciation, the Logic Math Olympics will be a yearly event at Colonial Hills.