Seventh graders compete in the Metric Olympics

In October, Cohoes Middle School students in Ms. Bailey's Grade 7 Enrichment class participated in the Metric Olympics.

The students were working on metric measurement and conversion in class, and these ideas were reinforced through the games.

Each class gave themselves a team name and competed against each other in events such as the paper plate discus, cotton ball shot put, plastic straw javelin, and the opposite hand sponge squeeze. Each student was given a chance to estimate how far/much they could complete the activity based on metric benchmarks (100 meters, 200 meters, 60 milliliters etc). The winner of each event was determined not by who threw it the furthest, but by who had the closest estimate.

The rules required the students to not only use metric measurement to determine distance and volume, but also to practice estimation and subtraction skills (sometimes with negative numbers).

Medals were awarded not only to individual students, but to teams who had the lowest score across the entire grade. All of the kids were highly motivated, and looked forward to each day's events despite the dreaded math component!