LANSING, Ill. (February 1, 2024) – Sunnybrook School District 171 showed students the fun aspects of math at its first Annual Family Math Game Night. All students in the district and their families were invited to participate in the event at Nathan Hale Elementary School on January 30.
District officials aimed to show students that math is not isolated to a classroom but is a part of everyday life.
“Math is in everything that we do,” said organizers.
Sunnybrook School District presents “Alice in Numberland”
The Alice in Wonderland-themed event featured food, beverages, games, a popcorn stand, coloring, and selfie stations.
Nathan Hale’s hallways and cafeteria were decorated with characters from the classic Disney movie including the Queen and King of Hearts and their card soldiers.
Families were able to play a variety of math-related games including dominoes, Phase 10, Battleship, Clue, and traditional playing cards.
Tiffany Henry, parent to a seventh-grader at Heritage Middle School, brought her son to the event because math is his favorite subject.
“He loves math, so I wanted to bring him,” she said. “I think this is a good event.”
The main activity of the evening was math bingo. Unlike traditional bingo, players were required to solve math problems on a printed bingo card to get the numbers before they were called out.
The first player to get five numbers in a row either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, and call out “bingo” won the game.
The evening ended with the announcement of the raffle winners. The first-place winner took home a $25 Amazon gift card, second place won a $15 Target gift card, and third place won a $15 gas card.
The importance of math
District officials feel it is important for students to be able to see the connection between using math in the real world and learning it in the classroom.
Organizers say their goal for this year’s math night was to make the subject fun for students and parents to help increase overall test scores.
“We wanted to show the parents that there are plenty of things that are math-related and to allow our students to build excitement about it,” said Dr. Lori Owens-Stranc, Assistant Superintendent and Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Sunnybrook District 171.
“A lot of times math is a subject that if students don’t get it then they hate it and we want to promote it because math is so important,” she continued.
Nathan Hale Elementary School is located at 19055 Burnham Avenue in Lansing.
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