Here’s a fun activity you can send home with your families to do over the summer that will keep math alive – a math scavenger hunt. I’ve done it many times at our local Family Math Night events and it’s a HUGE hit. When we do this at our events, students receive the scavenger hunt activity sheet and a pencil and, working with their parent/caregiver they go on a hunt for math items. This is a great way for students…
I know I’ve said it before, but math combined with art is always a huge hit at our Family Math Night events. It’s the reason why we included at least one crafty math activity in each of our event kits. In addition to those in the event kits, I’ve also created over 20 individual math/art activities that are fun to include at your Family Math Night event. Here’s my latest – designed around my summertime frame of mind: Beach Ball Fractions. This was a super fun…
Kids love it any time they get to share something about themselves. So let’s tap into that while sneaking in a little math thinking. Here’s a fun, easy and creative way to have students sign in at your next Family Math Night event…an Our Pets Venn diagram. A Venn diagram is a graphical organizer that uses circles to compare and contrast two or more sets. The overlapping circles contain common properties. For this Venn diagram, I thought I’d kick it up a notch…
Dr. Karen Mapp, renowned for her work on family engagement, asked the audience at the 2024 ESEA Conference to list 5 events or activities that schools are currently doing to engage families. She then asked the audience to circle the activities that fit all three of the following criteria: “This is how you do effective family engagement”, she said. It turns out that our K-5 Family Math Night events hit each of the criteria she listed for providing effective family engagement: One…
Dinner + Math We all know that parents are busy people. Any opportunity to make their lives easier and, well, they’re usually in. So let’s take dinner off their plate (!) and feed them. A spaghetti feed works well. But if you want to make it easy, bring in pizza or, even better, have a local restaurant donate the food. You can pass out their restaurant coupons at the Family Math Night sending customers in their direction. It’s a win/win! If you do decide to offer…