West Madison Elementary School and Mathnasium host fun ‘Math Night’ for students
MADISON — Mathnasium of Madison and the West Madison Elementary PTA banded together to bring a night of fun and educational games to the school Nov. 8.
Mathnasium’s ‘Math Nights’ are held around the country as partnerships between the math centers and local elementary schools’ PTA organizations. The purpose of the evening is to help students understand math and begin to see how it can be used for fun.
“We just love doing these,” said William Helmstadter, a Mathnasium franchise business consultant who oversees centers in the Southeast. “We want to get kids excited about math and to associate math with fun, and they can go a long way after that.”
More than 50 students and their families poured into the WMES cafeteria to take part in the math-focused games and activities. Teachers and volunteers manned each station and enjoyed interacting with the children.
Games like “Magic Plus,” “Phase 10,” “Addimorphs” and “Number Detective” utilized dominoes, cards and other materials to help children develop and hone a wide variety of math skills. Different games were geared toward different grade levels.
In Number Detective, geared toward grades K-2, second grade teachers Jenny Creasy and Cheryl Bailey laid out a few pencils for the student to count. Then, the student closed his or her eyes while the teachers either added or removed pencils. After opening their eyes, the student had to come up with a number sentence to describe what happened.
Both Creasy and Bailey said they enjoyed having a chance to work with students of other ages at the Math Night.
“It’s fun to just play a game with them,” Bailey said. “It’s fun to play with all the kids, brothers and sisters.”
Deena and David French decided to bring their second- and fourth-grade granddaughters to the Math Night to experience the fun.
“This gives [students] a great opportunity to interact with their friends outside of the school class, and hopefully they can learn something,” Deena said.
Michael Cox, who happened to be a former WMES student, emcee’d the event and announced winners of several raffle prizes like gift cards and math games. Doctor BBQ also provided attendees with dinner outside. Later in the evening, Helmstadter joined Linda Hussong, owner and director of Mathnasium in Madison, to welcome guests and award West Madison Elementary PTA with a large check for $1,000. Hussong said the grants are awarded to PTAs each year who apply for the grant and participate in the Math Nights. Mathnasium corporate awards 35 of these grants each year in support of the ‘STEM + Families’ partnership.
Pollard accepted the grant on behalf of the PTA.
“We are going to put it to good use,” she said. “We are doing lots and lots of things around here. Specifically, we are going to focus this on some playground improvements, which we are all so excited about.”
WMES third grade teacher Jaclyn Hess was also the recipient of a $250 prize to use toward her classroom. Hess said she plans to use the money to expand her classroom library.
“According to them (my students), they want to help me spend the money, and we’re super-duper excited and super thankful to Mathnasium,” she said.
One of Hess’ students, Samantha Armbrust, attended the Math Night with her parents, Stephanie and Robert. She said she enjoyed seeing her teacher outside normal school hours. She also enjoyed her teacher’s game station, which involved sharpening addition skills.
“I get to see a bunch of teachers, and I get to play games and figure out problems,” Samantha said of her experience at the Math Night.
According to Helmstadter, Mathnasium has been putting on these Math Nights for about three years. Huntsville is also home to its own Mathnasium center. In addition to working with West Madison to host a Math Night, Hussong said she has done the same with Rainbow Elementary, Monrovia Elementary and Athens Renaissance schools.
Pollard said this month’s Math Night was the school’s first, and she was impressed with the turnout. Hussong said she hopes to bring the evening of fun back tot he school in the future. Until then, other schools will host their own Math Nights with Mathnasium. Horizon Elementary School is scheduled to host theirs Dec. 10.
To learn more about the Madison center, visit mathnasium.com/madisonal.
Madison’s Mathnasium is located at 51 Nance Rd. near Rainbow Elementary School.
