Watch out 10,400 math problems, students in one classroom at Woodbury Elementary School are coming after you.
As part of the annual Super Goals challenge sponsored by the Times-Republican, 20 students in the fourth grade class of teacher Jamie Williams at Woodbury have been chosen to start a task of completing a total 10,400 math problems on their own time by the deadline of the Feb. 6 Super Bowl.
The class decided they would each do 20 math problems a night including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They have a total of 26 nights to work on reaching their goal.
"This will be a good extra boost for them in math," Williams said. "They are pretty excited."
The class started the challenge on Wednesday and if the students accomplish their goal the Times-Republican will return to their classroom with a pizza party.
"I'm excited," student Isabel Ramirez said of the challenge. "It will be fun to see how many problems I can get right."
Williams has a feeling some of her students will go above and beyond the required math problems and is confident the class can reach its goal.
"We have some go-getters in this class," she said.
Last year a class from Hoglan Elementary School took on a reading challenge that it completed in time for a pizza party in the first ever T-R Super Goals. Williams said the class was surprised it was picked out of the entire Marshalltown Community School District for the challenge this year.
"They think it's pretty cool they are the only kids in Marshalltown doing this," she said.
Abigail Pelzer, managing editor of the Times-Republican, said any program where students are striving to do their best is good for the community.
"At the Times-Republican we realize on a daily basis the importance of meeting both our short and long-term goals," Pelzer said. "The Super Goals idea stemmed from that, as well as our commitment to partnering with our educators and students. If we can help one classroom each year to feel the satisfaction of attaining a goal, we're pleased. I feel that if our students begin the habit of setting and reaching goals at a young age they're more likely to carry that habit into their adult life."
Look for an update on how the Woodbury students did on their challenge in the Times-Republican following the Super Bowl.
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Contact Andrew Potter at 641-753-6611 or apotter@timesrepublican.com
