This workbook is aimed at math contests preparation for grades 1 and 2 and has a separate answer book. All contents are in English except some headings for the purpose of selling in China.
Only the knowledge of basic chess moves is needed in solving some of the problems. The chess moves can be easily learned in a few minutes with my inventions of Geometry Chess Symbols which show what you see is what you move.
The are not many math contests for grades 1 and 2. The main reason, I think, is the limited math computation ability of lower grades students. Many North American students will not learn multiplication until grade 3, but many Asian countries and areas learn times table at grade 2, so there is one year of difference of learning ahead in China. This workbook has brought its standard to meet the highest possible math curriculum in the world so four operations of computation appear in this workbook. The earlier the students could master the skills of four basic operations, the more the students could explore many possibilities of word problem computation problems. With this in mind, how does the very popular Math Kangaroo Contest test the grade 1 and grade 2 students? How is it different from other math contests?
The Math Kangaroo grades 1 and 2 Contest almost does not include the direct math computation problems which are very different from the math contests in China where direct computation problems could include skillful computation problems. I analyzed the most recent years of Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest grade 1 and 2 problems and they start to emerge some characteristics and categories, so I include here to help students prepare for it. The lower grade math contest tends to skew to the more visual operation type of problems. The problems could be classified as follows:
Arrangement and sorting numbers
Patterns of figures and numbers
Counting figures or shapes or paths
Cubes or cards math including rotation or folding
Identifying parts of a figure or finding what part of a figure is missing
Number puzzles including filling numbers into empty spaces
Logic and reasoning problems
Word problems
Including some Chinese model problems
All other problems which do not belong to the above.
Many of the above problems are not typical problems appeared in the books where you can buy from a bookstore because the problems in the math contests are much more complicated and involve a lot of creativities. The above subjects are now included in this workbook.
Our math contest books are suitable for preparing the following math contests or competitions.
Worldwide Math Kangaroo Contests
USA Mathcounts
USA Math Olympiad
Mathleague Math Contest
Canada BC Elmacon Math Contest
Canadian Math Challengers Competition
Canadian Gauss & Pascal Mathematics
Mathematica Phythagoras, Euler, Langrange, Newton contests
Worldwide Caribou Mathematics Online Contest (USA Brock University)
Chinese math contests
Many countries' math competitions
Worldwide Math Kangaroo Contests
