Kiel/Sisco Family Math Night in Kinnelon

Do you remember Kinnelon's Family Science Night? The companion event, Family Math Night, took place on April 1st, 2009 in our very own Kiel School from 6 to 8pm. [The Kindergartners and Jr. K Sisco students came earlier.]

Although many others were involved, three teachers - Mary Ellen Cook, Nicole DiTommaso, and Jamie Nyegaard - played a major role in organizing the program.

The evening's program consisted of 6 separate activity stations, all based on Everyday Mathematics principles, that we rotated through.

Above, you see Emma taking part in Dice Graphing.

The kids could pick whether to graph 1, 2 or 3 die and then plotted/colored the totals associated with each cast.

We tried Tangrams.

We experimented with Geometry and Straws.

Next, we had Top-It.

Then,the Coin/Dollar Exchange.

Our last activity was Name That Number.

I discovered these number game resources that you might find interesting:

From the Everyday Math site, descriptions of many of the games. Here, a list of the Top 10 Math games relating to money from About.com. And, here computerized versions of the Everyday Math games!

What did I like most about the evening's program - apart from it taking place in one room [although we did enjoy exploring the Stonybrook school during Family Science Night]?

I really liked that the age and grade ranges of the kids were limited to first and second grade.

I also liked that the games were based on concepts that the kids were actively exploring in school.

Finally, it's fascinating to observe parent/child interactions. I enjoyed hearing from other parents about which games they play at home and which ones resonate more with their kids and why.

The brochure we received included several websites to visit for more information and activities:

+ Everyday Math

+ The McGraw-Hill Wright group offers Everyday Math information and resources.

+ Everyday Math game demonstrations

+ Figure This! with interesting math challenges for families to work on together at home.

+ NCTM Illuminations which provides activities to help with learning math.

+ ThinkFinity is a comprehensive digital learning platform for all subjects.

We had a great time with these interactive math games.

Many thanks to Ms. DiTommaso, Ms. Nyegaard and Mrs. Cook - pictured here, but not all visible, with Mrs. Pat Hart - for a wonderful evening.

If you know of other math based games that you've had success with, please let me know and I will add them to this post.







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