Math Program

Goals

To get elementary school students more interested in math through small group teaching, fun activities, systematical learning, and/or participation of Math Olympiad (MOEMS) contests.  Over three-fourths of the students in LYCAL contest center got awards in recent years.

To prepare 5-8th graders to be ready for advanced math courses/assignment load at middle school, and to help advanced students for major national and state math competitions such as MathCounts and AMC.

To build a solid foundation for high school students to:

  • Handle math-related courses well in high school;

  • Waive some basic math course requirements to advance to high grade math classes and/or take more AP courses, and

  • Be well positioned for top colleges with great GPA and SAT scores, and/or math competition awards. 

Classes

Classes are for students in grades 1 to 10, grouped by math level, using mostly textbooks published by Art of Problem Solving. Competitive Math classes use textbooks/handouts from both USA and China. Each lesson runs for 1.5 hour with an average of 4-8 kids. For more info, check the full course list with grade levels and textbooks.

Teachers

LYCAL math teachers have worked as college faculty in the USA or have many years of teaching experience in school math teaching. They have BS degrees in math and/or advanced degrees. They all have over 20 years’ experience and love to teach math. LYCAL math teachers have studied important math contests well and have collected a variety of contest problem sets for students to learn and practice from. See this page for more information about our teachers.

Students at Lexington (and many other) middle schools have the option to participate in school team selection tests a few weeks before each major contest as listed below:

  • IMLEM (Intermediate Math League of Eastern Massachusetts): five contests from October to March. 40 students selected each time for the school team to go out / compete.

  • AMC (American Mathematics Competitions):

    • AMC 8 in January (up to 8th grade)

    • AMC 10 in November (up to 10th grade)

All middle school students registered through the school can participate in the Nationwide AMC 8 contest. About top 30 can go to AMC 10. 3rd-10th graders in proper math levels can participate in AMC contests through LYCAL as well.

  • MathCounts: Selection tests for school team in early Fall. About top 20 students can participate in weekly training until early January. Top 10 students will go to regional contest. Top tier students go to the state contest.

  • MOEMS (Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools): can participate at LYCAL once every month from November to March.

Math Competition