Thursday, November 20 was Math Day in the Lower School at Packer, as children enjoyed games, challenges, parent visits, and an assembly, all to celebrate the everyday use of mathematics.
The purpose of Math Day was two-fold, says Lower School Assistant Head Rob Cousins. “First, we wanted to give mathematics its day in the sun,” he says.
“We have lots of celebrations at Packer — music, arts, dance, and publishing parties, for example — but we have never done the same for math. We wanted to recognize that, for a lot of children, math is their chance to shine.”
Mr. Cousins says that he and Head of the Lower School Andrea Kelly also wanted to acknowledge and address the fact that math at Packer is taught differently from the way that many parents learned it. “Parents are sometimes confused about the math assignments that their children bring home,” he says. “We hear about the disagreements that can ensue when homework time comes.”
To that end, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Cousins held a half-hour information session for parents in the early morning. They highlighted some of the key principles of “Everyday Mathematics,” the Lower School’s math curriculum developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.
For example, children are not encouraged to use “algorithms” or calculation tricks like “any number times zero equals zero” until they first understand the concrete concepts behind them. “Everyday Mathematics is about getting them to understand why things work the way they do,” says Mr. Cousins.
The program also emphasizes “automatic recall of basic addition subtraction and multiplication facts.” This knowledge is fostered through exercises like chanting, choral drills, and games.
After the information session, parents joined their children in class for an hour of games like “Roll for pennies, trade for nickels,” “Multiplication Baseball,” and the “number grid game.”
Later in the morning, Lower School students convened in the Pratt Theater for a Math Day assembly. Latin teacher Tim Flannery taught everyone how to count to ten in both Latin and American Sign Language. They also learned to count in Chinese, French, and German.
Mr. Cousins led the school in an estimation exercise, asking, “How tall do you think Ms. Kelly is in cubes?” Guesses ranged from 95 to 200. But after trying to stack the tiny cubes one by one, Mr. Cousins, asked the students if there might be a better way. “By tens,” a second grade student said after raising her hand. The counting proceeded much more quickly and the result was 86 cubes.
After lunch 4th Graders and 1st Graders paired up for an adventure on the Math Trail, a math-based scavenger hunt through Packer.
In other classes, individual parents visited to talk about their jobs and how they use math every day. An economist came in to talk about inflation, a realtor talked about home prices, and an architect to talk about measurements.
“The authors of the [Everyday Mathematics] program believe, as do we, that children are capable a great deal more than previously expected,” Ms. Kelly wrote in a letter to parents about the program.
And the numbers point to success. “Since we’ve adopted it, the children’s ERB scores have climbed steadily each year in comparison with other independent schools,” says Mr. Cousins.
Read more about Everyday Mathematics.
|  Children enjoy the chance to play math-practicing games with their visiting parents on the morning of Math Day.
After the assembled children call out their estimates, teachers measure how tall Lower School Head Andrea Kelly stands "in cubes."
1st Graders pair up with 4th Graders to hit the "Math Trail," a math-themed scavenger hunt through Packer.
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