Lower School March Math-ness: Let the Games Begin!

The arrival of March meant only one thing for New Canaan Country School’s Lower School (Grades 1-4) families: March Math-ness! Designed to engage family and friends of all ages in a celebration of math fundamentals, the daily activities were held at-home with video tutorials and a packet containing necessary materials provided in advance.
“The overarching goal of March Math-ness is to provide an opportunity for families to engage with foundational mathematical concepts and support student learning in an exciting and relevant way,” said Lower School Math Learning Resources Teacher Kristen Giacalone who facilitated the event.  “It is important, especially during this Covid year, for parents to have the opportunity to see their children as learners since we are unable to welcome them into our physical spaces.”

Each day of Week One, Grades 1 & 2 had a new game introduced that typically focused on foundational skills such as addition or subtraction. Race to 100, Monday’s activity involved a deck of regular playing cards (face cards and jokers having been removed), a piece of paper and a pencil. Players then drew cards from the pile one-by-one, in a rotating circle, tallying the numeric value of their self-pulls, as they went. The first player to reach 100 points was named the winner. 

Grades 3 & 4 and their families experienced their own version of the event with games focusing on multiplication, mental math, and number puzzles. Zilch, a fast-paced, mental math game used dice, while the Math Scavenger Hunt had them search for items with mathematical relevance such as a coin, a two digit number, something representative of the number 5, an even number, a rectangular prism and more.

Participants were invited to share photos of their family Math-ness on a community padlets:
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New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.