[Ellie's Mom]

In an effort to show Math as a positive subject, our school would like to hold a Family Math Night. I've searched and found some things, but would like to hear from the 'real' people at proteacher We need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks in advance for any help with this.

[joleal]

Our second grade team consists of six teachers. We sent home a note explaining math night since this was our first year doing it, included on the note was an RSVP. We had 40 families attend. We had families rotate to each teacher. Ours was held in our gym. As the families arrived our principal was reading Stuart J. Murphy books to the kids to show the connection between math and literature. Our principal then gave some opening remarks. The families started with their child's teacher. Each teacher had a short teaching point to share with the families then each teacher taught a math card game. The families then got a chance to play the game. We asked each family to bring their own deck of cards. Each rotation lasted 10 minutes. Our principal kept track of the time and announced when it was time to move. Our families left with goody bags, which included a deck of cards, Halloween stickers, a pencil, Halloween erasers, and some candy. We also sent home the directions for the games that we taught.

[Ellie's Mom]

for your idea. I can see that working. And I love the idea of relating math to literature. The wheels are turning. Thanks, again.

[Carrie Sue]

I have done math night several ways. One way was I wrote a grant and it was just my class coming in at 7:00-8:00 at night. I did 3 of them a year. I used a book called Family Math and picked games from it. The families went from station to station when there was an opening. I had dishes of hard candy out for everyone to suck on while working. Each time they left, they had a goody bag and could check out math literature books and math games to be returned in a week or two. I remember that I had excellent attendance from the dads since many of them are free in the evening. I did this 3 different years. One year I remember I had every student attend at least one of the nights, which was unusual for our school.

Then one year our school had a math night when we started EDM. We met in gym and principal talked. One thing I remember he said was, " This is a fun, educational night. It is not a conference night. Please don't ask the teacher to discuss your child's progress. If you want to do that, please set up a conference time tonight for later." The parents and their children played the games in the room and also each grade had a time for the computer lab. They could show their parents the EDM games we had on there.

[garnet]

We too held a Math Night and had each grade level choose a couple of their favorite Everyday Math games and taught those to the parents. The children came too of course and we had a drawing in the end and gave away decks of cards and dominoes.