Crazy 8s Math Workshop – Math Fun for Everyone!

We just finished an 8-week session of math classes with Bedtime Math’s Crazy 8s Club for students in 3rd – 5th grades.  I was a little worried that the kids would attend all eight weeks, but we registered 22 kids and had between 16-22 kids every week.
The Bedtime Math program is a FREE kit that can be ordered and has (most) of the supplies you need for 8 weeks of classes, each class lasting an hour long.  The kids registered in our group were very smart kids, but we found out that they didn’t know a lot of the basics (like having difficult telling time on a an analog clock and understanding the tick marks on a ruler).
Throughout the eight weeks, the kids worked on measurement with toilet paper Olympics, telling time and using stop watches, probability with dice, and a lot more.  The kids (for the most part) really enjoyed themselves and I think they learned a few things that can help them in their math work at school and at home.  The great thing about this program is that everything is hands-on, there’s no filling out worksheets which the kids definitely love doing!
Overall, this was a very popular program that our library offered and we are looking at providing this again in the fall with either the younger audience (grades K – 2) or creating our own session for the older audience to participate again.