reflections+from+family+math+night

I'd like to comment on Jan's learning of adapting "on the fly". I wrote about this in my reflection to Mr. R. I think the little first grader that came around to all grade level tables, really gave everyone some new learning! Cheers to the little guy for such bravery! We also had to adapt our Contig game to fit his learning abilities. Instead of manipulating the numbers on the dice through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, Bob simply had him use addition and subtraction. Although, I'm not sure much subtraction was going on...Bob can comment further. Also, I'm not sure how anyone else feels about this, but I had a difficult time interacting with the kids at first with parents standing over their shoulders listening. Since no relationship had been established with the children or the parents, it was difficult for me to jump right in and begin interacting. Of course, after a few minutes of playing the game together, this anxiety disappeared, but it was interesting for me at least to find my nerves kicking in immediately! Perhaps name tags would have been helpful? Also, speaking from a group who had mixed gender teachers, it was interesting to see how the 5th grade boys went to the male teachers and the 5th grade girls came to me. Lindsay Zahner

Fabulous! Kids spoke about it all day on Friday. We adapted Contig to use with dice. Families were impressed with your professionalism. Nancy Q took ideas from you. Mike R

When I used to think of family math night, I thought of meeting expectations, beating my nerves and hopefulness. Now when I think of family math night, I see smiles, families that were too intrigued to leave and proud peers. I would love to do it all over again. The importance of networking with families was evident, watching the multitude of interactions was motivating, and the learning of the potential excitement math can create was priceless! I fully understand the need for being prepared, being able to adapt to various abilities, and being able to fulfill the need for fun with math in a single event. This math night went beyond math it met needs of companionship, a listening ear, an encouraging moment and a broadened world of math! Sarah Patschke

I feel like I'm merely repeating what's already been said, but Math Family Night is an important way to reach families and give them ideas for spending quality time learning math together. A father playing one of my games with his son, commented, “I’ll have to remember this game so we can play it at home.” A supporting home environment is crucial to academic success and this was such a fun way for all to build that family support. Lori Piechowski

Mr. Rospenda, Thank you for giving us the opportunity at your school to put our thoughts and what we've learned into action. It was so helpful doing our games with actual children! Of course what works at home with a 48 year old is much different than in real time with a 3rd grader! Some "thinking on the fly" was involved as younger or older children came to the table and also the need for assement came into play. I don't feel that I did a very good job of that! At one point I had a first grader (that I thought was a third grader) and her mom freaked when I asked her to do subtraction....so, lesson learned on assessment! I did do some "post" assessment with kids although I hadn't formally thought about it in questions like, what other things in your life would you use estimation for? Because we worked as a team picking out activities, in review Lori and I did well picking out different activities, as well as the other 3rd grade team, so the kids got a big variety. Most of my activities were dealing with estimation. It was interesting to watch the kids estimate, then as they got into the activity - reestimate! So even watching the learning as they are involved in the activity was really interesting. It was great to see parents, grandparents and children interact with math. The most revealing thing to me of the evening was the grandmother that drove over and hour to bring her grandson, he is fortunate for I think about all the kids that weren't there and don't have that "person" in their quality world. That person could be us. Jan Marnocha

Hi Mike, I thought the Family Math Night experience was very positive and I would love to be able to do something like this in every class, just to be able to apply the teaching techniques in a true setting rather than a simulated one. One thing that I really wanted to see from this was a list of the activities that were used with a brief description for each, so we could have the ability to use them in our classrooms (or our cottages!) if we would like to. Do you think that would be possible? Also, I liked the Math Night experience simply because it gave us an opportunity to work with the students and see their various learning styles in action. It was interesting to watch them work through the activities and I enjoyed coaching them to help them gain understanding. There was one student (a fifth-grader) who said she really struggled with the concept of time and how much time was passing, which was what our game targeted. I enjoyed working with her to help her grasp the idea, and I think if she were to practice using our take home game she might become more comfortable with it. I think it was a very beneficial experience for everyone. Thanks for giving us the opportunity! Stephanie Feuerstein

Family Math Night was Family Fun Night for all who participated! It was a great hands on experience for our class as student teachers to interact with a variety of students from diverse grades and abilities. I loved watching the kids concentrating on "playing" our math games and their excitement at getting the correct answer. I enjoyed applying the skills from class, such as team teaching, cooperative learning, math skills, differentiation, etc. I prefer to learn lessons that are applicable to real life teaching.

Thanks! Silena

Hi Mike and class, Math night was so much fun! I was so moved by the excitement over the activities and the interaction of parents with their students. It was amazing to see parents and kids having a great time and learning so much at the same time! It was great to work on team teaching as well as accomodating all of the levels of students that came to visit us. Thanks, Amy

Hello, I really enjoyed the family math night. It was a great hands on experience for us. I definitely recommend it for future classes. Sometimes sitting in a classroom hearing about teaching methods doesn't come full circle till you can actually experience it for yourself. There were a few students that we had to adapt for because they didn't understand the concept of time we were teaching and that's a great way to learn first hand how to think on your feet. Thanks again for the opportunity! Rachel Blohm