Transcripción

Text on screen: Family STEAM Event: Family Math Night

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.

On screen: Parents attend a “Family Math Night” event at the Lighthouse for Children Child Development Center.

Barbara Daniel, Program Manager: As a part of supporting our families, we hosted our Family Math Night event. And during that event, we had our guest speakers, Carolyn and Lisa come. We had a presentation for families surrounding early math.

On screen: Carolyn and Lisa present in front of a projector screen for families and children. 

Carolyn Pfister, Content Coordinator: So I have five ducklings on this side of the page, and I have two ducklings...

Barbara: Parents were able to gain some information and knowledge about how to support their children, what early math looks like, and how to continue building on those experiences.

Carolyn: Can somebody tell me how many ducklings are on this side of the page?

Children: Six.

Carolyn: Six.

Barbara: And another part of that was then, activities that were available for the children and the parents to engage in, with the parents leading the activities. And we had our teaching staff available to scaffold the parents, as well as the children, so that the parents were comfortable and knew that if they got stuck or if they weren't quite getting something, then the teacher would be there to support them.

On screen: Various clips are shown of families engaging in activities with their children during Family Math Night, such as reading, counting, playing board games, and making animal faces from geometric shapes.

Barbara: It was not only an opportunity for the parent to build on their confidence and understanding in how to support their youngest children with early math, but it also let them know that someone was there and that it was okay if they didn't have all of the information.

On screen: Children play in small ball pits and engage in a dice game.

Barbara: Our activities were geared for children, from infants through third grade. So although our program primarily provides preschool services, we wanted to make sure that we really had early math opportunities available for some school-age children. A lot of our families have older siblings, and so we want to really make sure that even though we may be focusing on our younger children, that we're still supporting parents who may have older children.

On screen: Carolyn speaks over clips of families interacting with each other and with their children.

Carolyn: It was very inspiring to see all of the family interactions that happened here. It was also very rewarding to see that families thought that they wanted to participate in more of these. Through the initiative, we have been pulling together resources for communities and schools and preschool centers, so that they can do their own Family Math Nights.

Parent 1: There it is!

Parent 2: Good!

Carolyn: What we're hoping that people will do with these activities is that they will use them as kind of a springboard within their own communities. It makes it much easier, it provides guidance, all of those suggestions that kind of takes the heavy lifting out of doing a Family Math Night locally.

On screen: A child stands with a plastic ball in her hand. Another child looks closely at a paper plate as she draws on it with a marker. Various other clips show families engaging in event activities.

Carolyn: The Family Math Night activities are structured so that children have an opportunity to explore math that's related to art and movement and making things—engineering, science, all of these concepts—playing board games with their families. It's a good opportunity for families and kids to come in and see how they can use math in their daily lives and just see how fun math actually is.

Text on screen: A special thanks to the children, families, and staff of the Office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools’ Lighthouse for Children Child Development Center, without whose help these videos would not have been possible.

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.