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| Judy Lewis wants to remove the fear factor for parents asked to help their children with math. Dominic Aguilar with teacher Lewis. |
Outside the Bath and Body Works shop at Vintage Faire Mall in Modesto, Judy Lewis sits in a folding chair in a bright yellow shirt and matching visor. On the tiny table in front of her stand bottles of body lotion and shower gel. Scores of students accompanied by parents are lined up to see her.
Nathan Bacon, age 7, and his mother haven’t come to sample the apple-scented fragrances or purchase them as gifts. They and the others have come to measure the contents of the bottles.
“Do you know where the ounces are?” Lewis asks Nathan, holding up the bottles. “The writing is very, very tiny. And ounces are abbreviated by the letters ‘oz.’”
Nathan notes that one bottle is 8 oz. and another is 10 oz. He looks at his assignment sheet and writes down “8 oz. + 10 oz. = 18 oz.” After receiving a “high five” from Lewis, he walks toward another store to solve his next mathematical problem.
“I love this,” says Heather Bacon over her shoulder as she follows her eager son. “We missed soccer practice for this. And I’m the coach!”
Welcome to Math in the Mall sponsored by the Stanislaus Math Council. Lewis, a member of the Turlock Teachers Association and a second-grade teacher at Earl Dennis Elementary School in Turlock, has been a council board member for the past 18 years. Her mission is to make math fun for students not only at her school, but throughout the Central Valley area of Modesto. And what could be more fun than running around a mall solving math problems?
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| Doing their Math in the Mall are (clockwise from top left) Jenna Stanislaw and her mother Regina, Trevor Price, and Sydney Smith with her mother Jean. |
The annual event for students in grades K-6 draws hundreds of participants, as well as parents, teachers and high school volunteers from three counties. Participants can be spotted clutching bright yellow instruction sheets that offer “grade specific” math problems meeting the state standards for number sense; geometry; statistics, data analysis and probability; mathematical reasoning; and algebra and functions.
Kindergartners, for example, might be asked to count the multicolored hearts on the “Stuff Me” station in the Build A Bear Workshop. Fourth- and fifth-graders are asked to look at the lines on the awning of Cinnabon and determine whether they are parallel, perpendicular or intersecting; or to measure the diameter and radius of the door handle at the Children’s Place.
Students must complete and record their answers to at least two math problems from each of the five standards for their grade level. When they have finished, they take their booklets to information tables in the Center Court and receive a certificate, plus a chance to win drawings for prizes donated by merchants. Teachers are available in the court to answer questions or discuss the solutions to any problems.
Growing up in a family that owned a store in Modesto is what inspired Lewis. “I’ve worked in retail all my life. I thought this would be a great way to increase parent involvement, because all children must be accompanied by a parent. And it’s a great way to increase community outreach. Also, the stores appreciate having people come in.”
Lewis, who won the 2005 Teacher Leadership Award in math from the California Subject Matter Projects, spends much of her time organizing math enrichment opportunities for K-12 students. She helps to coordinate a number of annual events in addition to Math in the Mall — like the Sixth-Grade Math Blast, the Schaff Jr. High Math Superbowl and the Stanislaus Math Council’s High School Math Competition. In 2004 she created the Downtown Math Jamboree for Turlock elementary students. It’s similar to Math in the Mall, except that it’s designed for a rural community that has no mall.
The events were necessary, she says, because there were competitions for other subjects — such as spelling bees and English essay contests — but nothing for math. And parents were often “scared to death” of math when she suggested they do hands-on activities with their children at home.
“It might be because math used to be taught just one way — with pencil and paper,” says Lewis. “When I was in high school I got the answers right, but I didn’t always understand what I was doing because it wasn’t hands-on.”
Her efforts to make math fun, user-friendly and a part of everyday life were clearly appreciated by those attending Math in the Mall.
“Math is definitely more fun than when I was in school,” says Stacie McClure, who participated with her son David, 8.
“They’re learning good, practical math applications that they can use in everyday life,” says Regina Stanislaw, who accompanied her daughter Jenna, 6. “Plus we got to build a teddy bear.”
