World Federation of the National Mathematics Competitions 2018

At the end of July the conference of the World Federation of the National Mathematics Competitions was held.

Every year scientists, mathematicians, mathematics teachers and university lecturers from more than 20 countries gather to exchange experience, share their challenges for the year, exchange mathematics problems from competitions and last but not least have some “mathematical fun”.

This year the co-founder of Fun Mathematics Svetlana Goranova took part by presenting in front of the international audience of mathematicians the original methodology of the Center for Fun Mathematics for 4 to 8-year-olds. According to her 7 years of experience teaching youngsters, some of the children aim at competitions and Olympiads when starting school. A prime example is Ognyan Stefchev, who at only 11, is a medalist andparticipant in Olympiads. He shares that his interest in mathematics was born out of his participation in the courses of Fun Mathematics when he was 4 years old.

 

Svetlana showcasing part of the didactic materials she uses in class: wooden puzzles, conundrums and the geometric board Open Geoboard, produced by Nikola Chernev.

In result of the conference we created many useful contacts in the sphere of Fun Mathematics and science communications: Mark Saul from the Mathematics Festival; Julia Robinson http://jrmf.org/; Sergei Dorichenko – chief editor of Russian magazine “Quantic” and others.