When my oldest son was entering Kindergarten, he had an appointment with his teacher before the school year started so that she could assess where he was academically. I remember sitting in the back of the room and listening to the two of them chat about his interests, his summer activities and his thoughts about being in Kindergarten. She then asked him if he could count to 100 for her. Without skipping a beat, my son asked if she wanted…
Parents are always looking for simple ways to help their child academically at home. So I created two new handouts for you to share with your parent community – one for preK-2 and the other for 2-5. Although I designed them to be passed out during a Family Math Night event, they work well at Back-to-School Night, as well. My focus while writing the handouts was on low-stress, high-value activities that parents can do with their kids at home to…
Here’s a super fun addition to a Family Math Night event: A scavenger hunt! As participants enter the room they are handed one of two “game boards”…the K-2 version or the 3-5 version. The K-2 version is a little easier and includes pictures. In addition, it’s played like bingo but with a scavenger hunt twist. Kids and their parents explore math in the environment by finding and crossing off items on their bingo board. Five-in-a-row wins. For a challenge (and…
Hers’s my latest Family Math Night Collaborative Project. This one involved play dough! The video version where I give the step-by-step directions is below. Click the image to the left for the lesson plan. .
Here’s a fun Family Math Night collaborative project where participants create a Sierpinski Triangle. The project includes three activity levels all which result in creating self-similar triangles which are them put together to make the large Sierpinski Triangle. I also talk about the Father of Fractal Geometry, Benoit Mandlebrot, Chaos Theory, and the connection between fractals and our cell phones. Click on the image to the left to get the lesson plan. .