· Math Explorers Club · Math Competitions · 11 min read
Best Math Competitions for 5th Graders
The seven contests open to a 4th grader are still the menu in 5th grade, and the level steps up: a longer Math Kangaroo paper, the core of MOEMS Division E, and middle school one year away. Here is how to pick one.
If you searched for math competitions for 5th graders expecting a new batch of options, the answer is simpler than that: the menu is the same seven contests your child could enter in 4th grade. What changes in 5th grade is the level. Math Kangaroo moves your child up to a longer paper, MOEMS treats 5th graders as the core of its elementary division, and middle-school contests like MATHCOUNTS are now one year away. In 5th grade the job is to pick one contest and build a steady habit before middle school, and you don’t need to be a math person to do that well.
This is the 5th-grade shortlist. If your child is a year younger, the 4th-grade version covers the year the menu first opens up. Our complete guide to math competitions for elementary students is the full catalog, and the decision guide helps you choose between them. Here we answer one question: what can a 5th grader enter, and which one should you pick?
The short answer: seven contests, and three things that change
A 5th grader can enter seven nationally recognized math competitions: Math Kangaroo, the RSM International Math Contest, the Noetic Learning Math Contest, the Continental Mathematics League (CML), MOEMS, Math League, and MathCON. Nothing new opens at grade 5, and nothing closes.
Three things do shift, and they shape which contest makes sense this year:
- Math Kangaroo gets bigger. Grades 1 through 4 take a 24-question paper. From grade 5 on, it is 30 questions in the same 75 minutes, with a top score of 120 instead of 96.
- MOEMS is built around this age. MOEMS tells its coaches that a team with any 4th or 5th grader should routinely be in Division E, its elementary division. A 5th grader sits in the middle of it.
- Middle school is next. MATHCOUNTS starts in 6th grade, and AMC 8 is open to grade 8 and below. Fifth grade is the last year to build habits before those arrive.
As in earlier grades, the most useful way to sort the list is by who signs up:
- You can register your own child, no school required: Math Kangaroo, RSM (online), Noetic’s At-Home Edition, CML’s home-school entry, and MathCON’s individual registration. That’s five.
- You need an adult to run a team: MOEMS and Math League. Both are built around a team at a school, so a parent can’t register one child the way you can for Math Kangaroo. The exception is MOEMS for homeschoolers, where a homeschool enrolls as its own team with a parent in charge.
Math Kangaroo: the first year on the 30-question paper
A 5th grader takes Math Kangaroo at the Grades 5–6 level, because the level is always the student’s actual school grade. That means 30 multiple-choice questions in 75 minutes, split into thirds worth 3, 4, and 5 points, for a maximum of 120. As at every level, no points are taken away for a wrong answer, so a guess never hurts.
Six more problems in the same 75 minutes means pacing matters in a way it didn’t at grade 4, and the 5-point questions at the end lean on logic and spatial reasoning more than arithmetic. It is still the simplest contest to run yourself: you register your own child, and you can choose an in-person paper test, a proctored online sitting, or a self-proctored virtual one at home (the virtual option returns a score and ranking range but no awards). The contest is held every March. Our Math Kangaroo 2027 page has the timeline, and the format guide walks through what the paper looks like. For grade-matched practice, start with our free Math Kangaroo practice problems for grades 5–6, each with a full worked solution.
MOEMS: the contest that fits 5th grade best
If your child’s school runs one competition, there is a good chance it is MOEMS (Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools). Its Division E covers grades 4, 5, and 6, and MOEMS’s own guidance is that a team with any 4th or 5th grader belongs in Division E. More than 120,000 students take part each year.
MOEMS is a season rather than a single test: five contests, one a month from November through March, each with five problems in 30 minutes. The problems are non-routine, the kind that reward a good idea over a memorized procedure. Scores build across the season, and awards go to the top half (a patch), the top 10% (a pin), and anyone with a perfect score (a medallion).
The catch for parents is unchanged from 4th grade: MOEMS is run at the school by a PICO, the Person In Charge of the Olympiad, usually a teacher or parent volunteer who registers a team of up to 35 students and proctors each contest. There is no sign-up-your-own-child option at a school, though a homeschool can enroll as its own team with a parent acting as PICO. Registration is open by early fall and the first contest is in November, so September and October are the months to ask a teacher whether they’d run a team. Our MOEMS preparation guide for parents explains how the season works, and our MOEMS Division E guide teaches the strategies behind those non-routine problems.
The other five, in one table
| Competition | How a 5th grader gets in | Format | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSM Int’l Math Contest | You register; grade 5 can take it online or in person | One timed sitting | Early February |
| Noetic | School team, or the At-Home Edition you proctor | 20 problems, 45 min (50 online) | Fall and spring |
| CML, Grade 5 | Through the school, or as a home-school entry | 5 meets, 6 written questions each | Across the school year |
| MathCON | You register your child as an individual | 32 multiple-choice questions, online | Mid-January to mid-March |
| Math League, 5th grade | School only | 30 multiple-choice questions, 30 min | Spring, mid-April or later |
RSM International Math Contest
The RSM Foundation’s contest is open to all students in grades 1–8, with no requirement to be an RSM student, and because your child is past grade 3 the online version from home is available. It’s a single sitting in early February.
Noetic Learning Math Contest
Noetic runs 20 problems in 45 minutes (50 online), twice a year, in November and April. A school registers a team, or you can register your own child for the At-Home Edition, proctor it yourself, and get back a raw score, a national percentile, and a printable certificate. Noetic recognizes the top 10% in each grade with medals and the top half with ribbons, a useful benchmark for a 5th grader. More than 65,000 students took part in the 2025–26 school year. When you’re ready to prepare, our Noetic guide for grades 5–6 is written for this level.
CML, Grade 5
A 5th grader sits CML’s grade-5 paper inside the Grades 4–9 program: five meets across the year, six written questions each. Students are entered in one of two divisions, Euclidean (average reading comprehension and analytical reasoning) or Pythagorean (above average), and no team is in both. The school picks the division. Families whose school doesn’t take part can enter as a home-school student at a reduced per-child rate. Our CML guide covers the grade-5 paper.
MathCON
MathCON runs for grades 4–12, and parents can register their child as an individual participant with no school involved. Round 1 is an online multiple-choice test of 32 questions, taken during a window that runs from mid-January to mid-March. Top scorers are invited to a National Finals in May.
Math League, 5th grade
Math League publishes a 5th-grade contest: 30 multiple-choice questions in 30 minutes, on a three-page paper that gets harder page by page. It is held in the spring, on or after April 15, and it is school-only: in Math League’s words, “only schools may purchase the current year’s contests.”
Dates and deadlines
As of September 2026. Confirm on each official site before you register.
| Competition | Register | Contest | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math Kangaroo | Opened Sep 15, 2026; early rate to Dec 31; late rate Jan 1–Feb 1, 2027 | March 2027 (exact day on mathkangaroo.org) | $20 early / $35 late, per child |
| MOEMS Division E | Open now; the school registers | Five contests, Nov 2026 to Mar 2027; Contest 1 window Nov 9–30, 2026 | Per-team fee, usually paid by the school |
| Noetic, fall | At-Home registration by Oct 22, 2026 | At-Home window Nov 27–Dec 4, 2026; school window Nov 12–25, 2026 | $29 At-Home / $129 per team |
| Noetic, spring | At-Home registration by Mar 11, 2027 | At-Home window Apr 16–23, 2027; school window Apr 1–15, 2027 | $29 At-Home / $129 per team |
| RSM Int’l Math Contest | $15 Oct 1–31; $25 Nov 1–Dec 14, 2026 | In person Feb 2, 2027; online Feb 7, 2027 | $15 / $25 |
| CML, Grade 5 | School, or email CML for the home-school rate | Five meets during the 2026–27 season | $100 per team / $25 per child |
| MathCON | On mathcon.org | Online test Jan 13–Mar 17, 2027; finals May 29, 2027 | $75 per student |
| Math League, 5th grade | School orders | On or after April 15, 2027 | School pays (about $45 per set of 30) |
| AMC 8 (a stretch) | Through a school or host site | January 2027 (confirm the dates at maa.org) | Set by the host |
Sources: mathkangaroo.org, moems.org, noetic-learning.com, contest.rsmfoundation.org, cmleague.com, mathcon.org, mathleague.com, maa.org.
What’s coming next year
Two middle-school contests sit just over the horizon.
- MATHCOUNTS starts in 6th grade. Its Competition Series is for grades 6–8, and schools register in the fall. A 5th grader doing MOEMS this year is doing exactly the kind of problem MATHCOUNTS builds on.
- AMC 8 is open to grade 8 and below, so a 5th grader is technically eligible, but it is a middle-school test, held in January and registered through a school or host site. For most 5th graders it belongs on next year’s list. If your child is the exception, our AMC 8 guide is written as a first-year course.
Is your 5th grader ready?
By 5th grade the useful question is which level fits, since a typical 5th grader is in range for every contest above. Signs your child is ready for the longer papers (Math Kangaroo’s 30 questions, or a MOEMS season):
- They are comfortable with fractions, decimals, and multi-step word problems, which is where 5th-grade contest questions live.
- They can focus for 75 minutes without a break.
- They read a problem twice when the first reading doesn’t make sense, instead of giving up.
- They ask for harder problems than school gives them, at least sometimes.
If two or three of those are true, sign up. The rest comes from practice, and the bar is curiosity and a little persistence.
How to choose: one anchor, one habit
The 5th-grade trap is treating the list as a checklist. Pick one anchor:
- Your school runs MOEMS or Math League? Join that team. A group of classmates is the best motivator at this age, and MOEMS is the contest most closely matched to 5th grade.
- You want to sign up yourself? Math Kangaroo (in person or virtual), Noetic’s At-Home Edition, or MathCON’s individual entry, all a few clicks from home.
- You want a written, work-it-out season at a low price? CML’s home-school entry.
Then add the habit. The single biggest difference between a 5th grader who enjoys a contest and one who is thrown by it is a small amount of regular practice: fifteen or twenty minutes, two or three times a week, on problems that look like the real thing. That is what our weekly math worksheets for grades 5–6 are for: a lesson, a worksheet, and full solutions in your inbox each week, with a mock test every fifth week, so the practice runs itself. If you’d rather start free, our Problem of the Week sends one good problem a week, no cost.
The year before middle school
Fifth grade is a good year for competition math because the stakes are still low and the habits still stick. A 5th grader who has taken a 30-question Math Kangaroo paper and worked through a MOEMS season walks into 6th grade already knowing what a hard problem feels like and how to sit with it.
So pick one contest, keep the practice small and regular, and let the score be beside the point. Do a few practice problems together before the first contest, and read our guide to what to expect at your child’s first math competition the week before.
This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Math Kangaroo USA or Kangourou sans Frontières. “Math Kangaroo” is a trademark of its respective owners. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS®). “MOEMS” is a trademark of its respective owners. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Noetic Learning. “Noetic Learning Math Contest” is a trademark of its respective owners. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Continental Mathematics League. “Continental Mathematics League” is a trademark of its respective owners. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) or the American Mathematics Competitions. “AMC 8” is a trademark of its respective owners. It is also not affiliated with or endorsed by the RSM Foundation, Math League, MathCON, or the MATHCOUNTS Foundation. All competition details come from each organization’s official materials and can change. Confirm dates and fees on the official site before you register.
Once you’ve picked one, we make affordable, original prep guides to match: Math Kangaroo (Grades 5–6), MOEMS Division E, Noetic (Grades 5–6), and CML (Grades 2–6). You can browse them all, subscribe to the weekly worksheets for grades 5–6, or start completely free with our Problem of the Week.