An elementary school in Yorkton has successfully engaged parents and students into learning math through a Math Month initiative.
“Math Month was an idea we came up with to get as many students as interested and motivated about math as we possibly could,” explained Quinn Haider, principal at St. Paul’s School.
Running for a second year in a row, the program focuses on providing fun learning opportunities to promote and support numeracy outcomes.
Throughout the month of January, students participated in weekly family games, daily trivia, and an ongoing math challenge – where 250,000 questions were answered by the school.
“What we’ve learned and discovered over the years is there are a fair number of students, as well as adults, who are a little bit nervous when it comes to math,” Haider voiced.
“We’ve heard things like, ‘I’m not a math student’ but we believe every kid can be a math student.”
“What our staff did is, we came up with different activities for the whole month of January. We had activities that families can do at home together, parents working with their children, brothers and sisters working together, all playing fun math games to decrease the stress about math and increase the enjoyment.”
One student said being part of the month-long event helped grow her interest in the subject.
“I like how our school turned learning more into a game,” said Ava Norton.
“This whole month has been a game and a competition, I feel that definitely helped a lot.”
In celebration of the month coming to an end, parents and their children attended Family Math Night on Jan. 30, where each family rotated through different stations learning about addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.
“It lets me interact with my kid and makes me realize I haven’t been in school for a really long time,” Evan Holinaty, a parent from the school, said laughing.
“But it’s very good. The kids are excited for it, the whole thing is lots of fun.”
With the night’s event being led by Grade 8 students, one student shared what she enjoyed about the program.
“I feel like it’s good because not many people like math so this improves (that) and increases the percentage of kids who like math,” Alicia Mapayi said.
Before introducing the math program, the school took part in a literacy initiative called “One School One Book” for 16 years.
However, the switch to math has been well-received by the community, expressed Kerri Shumay, a parent from the school.
“They sent home games every week for us. We play them as a family at home and it gets everyone included,” she shared.
“It’s not just the kids sitting down having to do a worksheet of math, it makes it more fun on how to learn to do math. I hope we do it again next year, it’s been a big hit. Everyone has a lot of fun.”
Haider said the school plans to continue on with Math Month annually.
“If the kids can see the parents having fun with this, they’re going to buy in and if the parents see that, ‘Hey, this isn’t all that bad,’ they are going to buy in too,” she said.
“The more people we have on board, the better the results we have and the more confident our learners become.”
