Math-A-Thon held at Canyon School

Canyon School Math-A-Thon winners
C. Davis photo

Chris Davis

Canyon School Council hosted a Math-a-thon on February 26 and 27 as their main fundraiser for the year.  On Thursday, February 28 it was time for prizes.


During the Math-a-thon teachers were asked to have their classes write a math test, and then parents from School Council marked the tests and then based on the results tallied how many tickets each student would recieve.

Every class, from Grade 1 to Grade 6, participated.  The Grade 1 students did 10 questions, Grade 2 did 20, Grade 3 did... well, you get the idea.  All grades did the previous grade's questions, so only 10 questions were "new" each grade level up.  "If the kids got a hundred percent on the test, they got five bonus tickets," explained Canyon School Booster Society Secretary Treasurer Lisa Dupuis.

For every $5.00 fundraised by the individual student a ticket was awarded.  Over $25 earned bonus tickets.  Every child got a ticket for participating.  The top booster in every class also got a $20 gift certificate from the Chamber of Commerce Wind, Fun, an More Store.

"Some kids have a hundred tickets.  Our biggest raiser (Kyle Speight) raised $350," Dupuis said.

"They got pledges from people that they knew.  More tickets, better odds."

The main floor west wind of Canyon School was lined with numbered paper bags attached to visual descriptions of prizes donated from the community.

"We bought about $1,000 worth of prizes as well," said Dupuis. "Last years spell-a-thon only had 60 prizes."  This one had 77 prizes.  Enough to overflow the stage for the customary photograph on such occasions.

"We wanted to go a little bit bigger, and we did raise a little bit more than we did last year."

"Math is the three year focus for the school."

Each student could decide which bags to deposit his tickets into.  After all the tickets had thus been dispersed, it was my duty as first impartial party on the scene to draw a winning ticket from each bag.  No one was allowed to win twice.

The prizes were many, but the biggest reward was the enthusiasm level of most of the students.  Math made fun.   The selection of which bag to choose became an intellectual pursuit for some.  Some favored bags with less tickets and better odds of winning something.  Others focused on the prize that most appealed to them.

An iPad Mini and an Electric Scooter (which went to Kyle Speight) were the top prizes of the event.

Mrs. Robbins' 2A class got a remarkable 100%

The event raised a total of $6548.75 for the Canyon School Booster Club.