Mahwah Students Crunch Numbers for 43,000 Minutes

The following letter to the editor was submitted to Patch by the Betsy Ross School HSO. Submit your letters to jessica.mazzola@patch.com. 

The Betsy Ross School recently held their first ever Math Mania program and it created extraordinary math excitement throughout the school. The Betsy Ross HSO (Home School Organization) parents together with the staff introduced the three-week program. 

Math Mania was a school-wide enrichment program introduced for the first time this year to create excitement around practicing math skills while highlighting the role and importance of math in everyday life. During the program, students learned new, easy to play math games and were encouraged to work on their math facts at home.

So, how successful was this program? 

In just three weeks, Betsy Ross students accumulated over 43,000 minutes of extra math time -- that’s over 700 hours! That’s an amazing amount of math! 

Students committed to putting in this extra math time by playing games and practicing math at home, and generally, advancing their math skills. Students were entered into weekly drawings for prizes for completing math packets and accumulating math activity minutes. Participants got so caught up in the ‘math momentum’ that by the end of the program they were averaging over 100 minutes of extra math work per week. 

Everyone enjoyed an interactive and exciting math assembly during the opening week. The Marvelous Mathitude assembly demonstrated the excitement of everyday math while teaching strategies for handling word problems and improving math skills.  

Throughout the program, school-wide morning meetings led by Betsy Ross Principal, Dr. Roger Bayersdorfer, featured math challenges and video clips of speakers who shared the interesting role that math plays in their jobs. From the toy designer of Hot Wheels cars, to local entrepreneurs, a physician, teacher and professional athletes, students learned about how math plays a role in a variety of different professions, thus connecting mathematics to real world application. 

A school-wide “Jersey Day” provided great fun for both the students and staff as they used the numbers on their jerseys to create and solve various math equations. While everyone sported their jerseys, they watched a video message from professional athletes. Students were amazed at how much math was involved in sports. These athletes enforced the message that math is everywhere and math skills are important.

The conclusion of the Math Mania activities focused on currency and estimation skills with an opportunity to help others. 

The school participated in the “Coins for a Cure” program to collect coins to assist the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in supporting cancer research. While bringing in coins to help those in need, everyone enthusiastically participated in estimating each day’s coin collection. In just five days the school collected $714! What better way of counting on math than students making a positive change!

All this math excitement at Betsy Ross provided great context and purpose for what students are learning in the classroom. By making math fun, it helped engage the students and reinforce the message that math is essential.