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…
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…
In my August newsletter I mentioned that I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Karen Mapp, renowned for her work on family engagement, speak at this year’s National ESEA Conference. Then over the summer I read her co-authored book Everyone Wins! The Evidence for Family-School Partnerships & Implications for Practice. In her presentation and throughout the book, Dr. Mapp underscored the importance of moving from informing parents and caregivers about their children’s learning to including families as active participants. It begins with building relationships through on-going conversations…
Math and art. It’s always a huge hit at our Family Math Night events. Since we were using our Gellin’ with Geometry kit and the event was in the spring, I decided to tie geometry and spring together and came up with a springtime symmetry activity. Enter our insect friends. The type of symmetry I focused on was bilateral symmetry. It’s the same as mirror or reflection symmetry except that when it comes to biological creatures – like our insect friends – biologists call…