In the 2020-2021 school year we instituted a new enrichment pull-out program called ‘Advanced Math 4’. In the 2021-2022 school year we continued this program for both Grade 4 and Grade 5 with 'Advanced Math 4' and 'Advanced Math 5'. Advanced Math 4 & Advanced Math 5 is an enrichment pull-out mathematics program offered to identified students focusing on strengthening their critical thinking, problem solving, and mathematical practice skills. While Advanced Math 4 replaced Accelerated Math 4, in 5th grade there will now be both Advanced Math 5 and Accelerated Math 5. Rather than accelerating through mathematical content, Advanced Math 4 & Advanced Math 5 focuses on strengthening student's understanding of grade level standards through deep, meaningful mathematical tasks.

Advanced Math 4 & Advanced Math 5 focuses on strengthening students critical thinking and problem solving skills by engaging in deep, meaningful mathematical grade appropriate level tasks. By focusing on going deeper with the grade appropriate mathematics standards, we can tailor students mathematical experiences by eliciting greater analysis of the grade level standards through enriching mathematical discourse.

Whereas the focus in Advanced Math 4 & Advanced Math 5 is going deeper within the grade level standards, Accelerated Math 5 focuses on having students master Grade 5 and Grade 6 New Jersey Student Learning Mathematics content standards.

No. Students are evaluated annually for both Advanced Math 4 and Accelerated Math 5 and must meet a specified published criteria. Criteria for all mathematics programming including Advanced Math 4 and Accelerated Math 5 will be updated or communicated through this website.

No. At the end of Grade 5, there is an opportunity for students to 'on-ramp' into Accelerated Middle School Math from Math 5. Student must meet the specified criteria which is updated and published through this website.

Yes! There is a great difference between exposing students to accelerated content versus enriching/cultivating their mathematical minds. The latter provides an avenue for students to become encultured in the mathematical discipline and explore their curiosity to become natural problem solvers and critical thinkers.

Coming from an educator who taught for many years and loves the discipline. Teaching concepts prior to entering a course/grade level deprives students the experience of discovering and uncovering the intricacies and beauty of the mathematical concepts when explored in a school setting with other students. Given the nature of mathematics, and its affinity for students to discover ideas, teaching concepts prior to entering the course/grade level will lessen the experience for students. Research continues to show students who come to their own conclusions (through discovery and exploration) about mathematical concepts, have a more lasting impact in their overall conceptual understanding of those concepts. The greatest moments as a teacher was to lead and cultivate student experiences to achieve those 'ah-ha' moments in class. By exposing mathematical concepts ahead of time, there are less opportunities for students to achieve these 'ah-ha' moments for themselves. It is through these experiences that students gain the most amount of mathematical conceptual understanding.

If you are wanting to provide your students with additional mathematical learning during the summer or throughout the year, I would encourage you to expose them to enriching mathematical problems outside the content they are about to learn. This includes providing resources that enrich their problem solving ability or continue to expand their knowledge and gain additional mastery of their Algebra skills. The resources listed below hopefully will give you a place to start. If your student does not qualify for our accelerated mathematics pathway I would encourage you to focus on providing your student the enriching resources below.

• K-5

  • Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest - Many sample questions broken down by year and grade level. https://kangaroo.math.ca/index.php?kn_mod=samples

  • Caribou Practice Contests - Starting from Grade 3, this website provides online practice tests used to engage students in problem solving requiring them to think outside the box. https://cariboutests.com/test/practice_test_login.php

  • NRICH problem - Grade website with interesting problems for younger children (starting at age 5) - https://nrich.maths.org/8495

  • Illustrative Mathematics Problems - This resource provides enriching problems aligned to the Common Core Standards and tailor students experience toward approaching the problem using the content they should have learned from that standard. The website allows you to explore the different problems they have for each standard, print them out, and solutions are provided. For example (click here), there are nine problems involving the standards for creating equations and inequalities in one variable. You can filter by grade level and standard from the genera; website here - https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards

  • Jo Boaler and her youcubed team at Stanford University have created and gathered a number of tasks across all grade levels. Tasks can be filtered by grade and topics - https://www.youcubed.org/tasks/

Parents/guardians of students who have met the specified criteria listed will be notified early in the school year after all necessary testing has completed. Parents/guardians are encouraged to review their own student's data to determine if they met the necessary cut-scores. All data used to identify students will be able to be found in the Genesis Parent Portal.