Family Math Night/Pi Night

60

$688

K-8GRADE LEVEL

HOURS

TOTAL BUDGET

THIS WINNING PROJECT IDEA WAS SUBMITTED BY:

Curriculum/State StandardsStudents worked on grade level frac-tion problems, grade level addition/subtraction/multiplication/division problems, logic puzzles, word prob-lems, calculations of Pi, several activi-ties involving Pi and graphing.

OverviewIt provided a chance for families to be involved in math education. It helped create enthusiasm for math. And it provided a chance for students to have fun learning math. We also had many activities than integrated math with other disciplines (language arts, French, art, music). Furthermore, many of the math activities were planned by and run by students and their families. Family Math Night also brought the entire school together in a fun night celebrating math Family Math Night was like a carnival focused on math. Students arrived at Math Night and received a Pi(e) Chart with a number for each activity. Middle school students re-ceived extra credit if they participated in at least nine events. Students moved around the gym and had a chance to play each game. Many of the games had prizes. There was also Pizza Pi(e) served in the lunchroom. The eve-ning ended with a math competition between the middle school math team vs. Principal Andrews and Einstein.

Project Objectives• Students will integrated math with

other disciplines (French, language arts, art, music).

• Students will learn about the number Pi and have a chance to calculate it.

• Students will learn about the Car-tesian grid system and play a game with it.

• Students will learn about scale and create a piece of artwork using scale and grids.

• Students will learn how to do logic puzzles (sudoku, pentominoes, tan-grams) by other students.

• Students will be integrally involved with teaching other students about math.

Materialsposter board, markers, prizes, food, paper products, paper, construction paper, colored paper rolls, tables, chairs, tape, supplies for games.

Readiness Activity Planning of games by students. We played the games in small groups to make sure they could be replicated and to figure out what materials and in-structions were needed. A layout of the gym was made to figure out how many tables, chairs, volunteers, posters, etc. were needed.

This project provided extra challenges in math allowing students to do math at a higher level than they normally would.

Mark Hirsch Marcy Open School414 4th Avenue SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Continued on the back...

“Family Math Night/Pi Night” project continued...Strategies/Activities Planning began on the project six weeks before the event. This allowed for students in small math groups to begin planning games and figuring out how to explain their games to others. Many hours were also spent coordinat-ing volunteers, planning each activity and making sure that each table had the necessary supplies, buying sup-plies, making signs, ordering tables and chairs, ordering food, setting up the event and cleaning up. Entry table where students received their Pi Chart and a Fraction Hunt sheet. Math Bingo: Students had to an-swer math problems in order to cover up numbers on their game card, rather than just having a random number drawn. Pi Walk (instead of Cake Walk): Chairs were numbered with digits 0-9. When the music (with math songs) stopped, a digit of Pi was revealed to choose the winner; Cartesian Coordinates: This game had a king sized sheet with a large grid drawn on it. Various prizes were placed at the grid intersections. Contestants stood on each corner and rolled two large dice. They moved ac-cording to their roll (i.e. if they rolled a 3 and a 5, they could move three spaces one direction and 5 the other, or the other way around). If they won a prize, their turn was over. Students could keep playing until they won a prize. Math Jeopardy: Categories were created (fractions, geometry, word problems, logic problems, addition/subtraction). Each category had prob-lems that were based on what grade the contestant was in. Math Bowling: Game created by and run by a student. Math Hang Man: Created by a student. The student made up math problems for different grade levels. The game was played like regular hang man except that each space was for one part of the math problem.

The Art of Math: an 8-1/2 x 11 black and white picture of Einstein had a grid drawn on it and then cut into small pieces (1 inch x 1 inch). Before being cut, the pieces were numbered according to a grid system. Larger pieces of paper also had a larger grid drawn on them. Students took a small square and enlarged it onto the large square. They wrote the number of the small square on the back of the large square. When they finished their draw-ing, they taped it onto a grid in the appropriate place. No one knew what the drawing was until the end. The Language of Math: Word problems were written in French and middle school students taught other students and adults French math terms in order to help them work the prob-lems. Logic puzzles were written in rhyme (middle school language arts was working in poetry) and students had to solve them in order to win a prize. The Pi Table: Various round ob-jects were available so students could measure the diameter and circumfer-ence and try to calculate Pi. Other Pi activities also at this table (run by a retired engineer). Pi Chain: The first 150 digits of Pi were printed out on a long poster. Each digit was represented by a differ-ent color. Students created a Pi Chain using the digits of Pi. (This chain is still hanging in the hallway.) Computer Math: the computer cart was set up with many different math websites available for students to play math and science games. Students could take a sheet of math websites.

Culminating Activity The event ended with a Math Counts type of math competition with the middle school math team competing against the principal and a special sur-prise guest. Math questions were written from Math Olympiad competition prob-lems. Each team got a turn to answer a math problem. If they got the right answer they received a point. If they got it wrong, the other team had a chance to answer. Evaluation Method After the event, a team of people in-volved in running the event walked through the process and made notes of what worked, what didn’t work.