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…
Students make great Family Math Night Station Facilitators. As much as I can, I use students in grades 5 and up to run my stations. Here’s why: In my September newsletter I shared an activity that I did at a recent event – ABCs and 123s. I absolutely loved watching how engaged the families were. But my favorite part of this activity was Paisley, my fifth grade station facilitator. I happened to capture her on video as she helped two students do the…
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…