Golden 49

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. ― Nine-year-old Lavina Ngo of Peters K-3 Elementary School was crowned champion of the third annual Third Grade Math Bee of the Garden Grove Unified School District.

Lavina, a Garden Grove resident, was rewarded with a plaque plus a perpetual trophy for display at Peters (K-3) School during the next year. Ribbons and certificates were presented to first runner-up Jason Nguyen of Paine Elementary School along with the remaining participants.

The championship was decided when Lavina solved a balanced equation problem within the 40-second time limit: 46 + 28 = 123 – ?. The answer is 49.

The district-wide competition featured the top third grade math students from 46 GGUSD elementary schools who qualified by either winning their local school math bee or being selected by teachers as an outstanding mathematician. Lavina, a prized student of teacher Diana Rowell-McBride, advanced to the district contest after emerging as the math bee winner among her grade level peers at Peters K-3.

Lavina enjoys the GATE program and looks forward to each day’s new challenges. Predictably, Lavina says math is her favorite subject in school. Her career goal is to become a lawyer.

During the math bee, each question was projected on a screen, and contestants were given a time limit in which to calculate and record their answer. An incorrect answer resulted in immediate elimination.

Multiplication problems based on state mathematics standards were the focus of the contest. The demanding questions included multiplication computations of graduating complexity, determining missing factors in equations and word problems.