Coshocton Elementary holds family math night
Camrin Dewitt, a second grader at Coshocton Elementary School, enjoys learning math facts by playing a game of War with his aunt, Heather Walker. The school had a family math night on March 5. Jen Jones | Beacon
COSHOCTON – Showing students that learning math can be fun and giving families new ways to use everyday items to teach math were the goals of the organizers of Coshocton Elementary School’s sixth family math night, held on March 5.
Tiffany Shook, a title teacher for second grade said, “We want to show the kids that learning math can be fun with different games. It doesn’t have to be using flashcards. We also want to get families in the school and involved with activities with the students.”
The evening included pizza and pop, time in the computer lab learning math with computer games, card and dice games to learn math facts and shapes the students could trace and create pictures. As people signed in, they could also guess how many M&Ms were in one jar and Skittles in the other. The winning guess won the jar of candy. One guess only missed by 9.5.
“Every student will get a book tonight, a deck of cards and we have six hand-held math games to give away,” said Shook. The school does four family nights a year – title info, reading, math and a movie night. “The movie night this year is May 3. We are going to be watching ‘Inside Out.’” She said that students are invited to bring blankets and pillows and wear pajamas. “We pop popcorn and have water and juice. And they all get a book to take home.”
Every family was given a packet of info that included instructions for the games that were played at the school. “We try to make everything so it works for preschool through sixth grade. Our numbers are hit and miss. Some nights, we have a huge group and others, it’s smaller, but as long as we get families to come, we are happy,” said Shook.
Camrin Dewitt, 7, is a second grader at the school and came to the event with his aunt, Heather Walker. He liked playing the dice games, but playing the card game War was even better “because you can get a lot of cards!” To play, each of them flipped over a card and Camrin had to add the cards together. If he was correct, he got the cards to add to his pile. If he was wrong, his aunt got the cards.
He was excited to have a bug pile of cards and to be at math night with his aunt and not his brothers. “This is our quality time together,” said Walker. “We made plans last week to come.”
Walker thinks these family nights are wonderful ideas and said, “I can’t believe more parents don’t take advantage of them. It gives the kids time off of electronic devices and shows them how to learn things using every day things.”
Category: Education
