Parents had the opportunity to learn how their children are learning mathematics during a recent family math night at Gladys Speers Public School in Oakville.
On May 11, approximately 100 parents, guardians, grandparents and students happily engaged in numerous math activities like Dreambox presentations and gaming including the use of dice and Battleship.
“Our message to parents was to come in and have some fun playing games with your children while developing math skills," explained Lisa Coffey, Principal at Gladys Speers Public School. “We also wanted parents to understand the math we were working on in our building so they could better support their child's learning."
Family nights aim to help parents better understand the math their child is learning and to support them at home.
“Math nights also help to counter some of the misunderstandings of how and why math is taught in different ways today than in the past. Many parents are impressed when they better understand and appreciate the value of our current approach to teaching math."
The games accessed during the math night were raffled off the following morning to support the home connection and encourage parents and students to approach some of their math learning in a fun way, Coffey said. The games are a great way to spend family time while developing and reinforcing math skills and supporting the development of social skills such as learning to take turns at an activity.
“Parents and grandparents asked great questions during the presentations and many wanted to share their solutions to problems presented in Number Talks and in the open problems used for learning with manipulatives," Coffey said. “Students helped their parents understand how to approach problems and student work displays allowed parents to see a student's reasoning and how the teacher would consolidate the learning. Many of our attendees were excited to share their solutions during Number Talks sessions."
See how the Board is addressing the province's Renewed Math Strategy.
