Elementary Mathematical Problem Solving

While my daughter was in elementary school there I ran a weekly Mathematical Problem Solving After School Activity for 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th graders at the San Diego French American School. We prepared for the Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS) and other competitions, and I also tried to convey some accessible concepts not often taught in elementary school, usually through sequences of problems. Here are some of the topics we covered.

• Binary numbers problems
• Les étoiles et les concombres de mer problems

• Remainders (Les restes) problems
• Checking your solutions: repetition and avoiding repetition in language [slides]
• Sums and products problems
• Une fable de La Fontaine ... et de Isaac Newton (average and instantaneous speed) [animations, plots, and problems]
• Binomial coefficients (Les coefficients binomiaux) problems
• Area and Pythagoras (Pythagore) problems

• Similarity (La similitude) problems
• The sun, the moon, and some planets problems
• 3D geometry: cubes & beyond problems
• Averages (Les moyennes) problems

• Family trees (Les arbres généalogiques) problems
• Oops, let's fix that! (Inclusion-Exclusion Principle) problems
  
• Numerals (Les chiffres) problems
  

• Chef Euclid problems
  
• Nines and ones problems
  
• Addition and multiplication problems
  

• 3D visualization problems
  
• Formal system problems
  
• Arithmetic and geometry problems
  

• Not adding problems
  
• Logic problems
  
• Not Sudoku problems
  
• Hidden number problems