Family Math Night “Accessories”
Activities are planned. Materials gathered. Facilitators signed up. Now it’s time to think about some easy ways to create a fun and welcoming Family Math Night environment. I call this “accessorizing” your event. Here are four simple ideas:
1. “Passport” Stickers and Prizes
Kids love collecting stickers. And they love getting prizes, too! So as they enter your event, hand them a “passport” that lists each of the stations. They collect stickers by completing an activity at a station. Once they’ve visited a minimum number of stations they can go to the prize table and choose a prize.
Our event kits include the ability to print out passports but you can easily create your own.
Check out this cutie sporting her passport while sharing the 3-D solid she made. And here’s the prize table that awaits!
2. Station Facilitators
To help your participants easily identify your station facilitators, visors are a fun thing to have the facilitators wear. In my early years of hosting events I purchased plain visors and then added an ‘I Love Math‘ button to the front. Now we make it even easier by offering Family Math Night visors. The student facilitators* love wearing them as it makes them feel “official”.
*We like to use Fifth Graders and up to run our stations.
Along the same lines is to have your facilitators dress similarly. For example, wearing a fun math t-shirt, like the lovely ladies to the left, helps promote a love of math. Or show school pride by wearing your school spirit shirt.
It’s also nice to have a couple of your accessorized facilitators greet your participants as they enter your event.
3. Table Dressing
One super simple and fun thing to do is to make your environment look and feel festive by covering your tables with colorful plastic table covers. I usually head to the Dollar Store and get these pretty cheap. And if your tables are round, they have round table covers, as well.
If you’re interested in seeing some examples of different rooms I’ve set up over the years, click here.
4. Parent Handouts
Finally, it’s nice to send families home with a packet of information about how they can help their child build a strong mathematical foundation. We have some handouts you can print from our website. We also have a fabulous parent booklet filled with ways to support math learning at home.
Including some of these simple ideas at your Family Math Night event is an easy way to create a fun and welcoming environment that families will be talking about for days.