Hannah Schaefer

As a second-choice assignment, I did a math, family engagement activity. Lexington

Elementary was holding a family, Monster Mash Night and in groups we were to make math or

science activities to follow the nights theme. My group choice to make the activity of Monster

Mansions.

In this activity, students would be given a multitude of materials such as marshmallows,

gummies, and toothpicks, and asked to make a mansion out of them for their monster. The

students were given free range with how tall they wanted the mansion to be, how wide, how it

looked and so on. The students were then asked a series of questions after, which was

dependent on the age range. Some students were simply asked what shapes they could find in

their mansion and some students were asked questions like how you think the mansion could

be sturdier or if they thought they could add 1 or two more shapes to their creation.

Overall, family night for my group was a success. Students were able to come and go as

they pleased, and parents would follow. We had the opportunity to explain our activity to both

groups and explain why it is important and why it is fun. Some of the parents would even

accept the challenge of making larger structures than their children and we could even quiz

those adults on what makes their mansions differ from their child’s.

From this experience, I really took away how important family engagement is. School is

a massive experience for students and they need to be supported through it all. Not even that,

but parents need to know and be able to support what students are learning. This night

especially encouraged this because there were a plethora of rooms and activities that gave

parents or guardians a little glimpse of what their child is learning and how it can be fin and
informational at the same time. It also showed parents different ways of conveying different

topics. There were plenty of topics and activities that overlapped content areas, but each

activity involved a different strategy. This hopefully opened up the eyes of the adults tot the

usefulness of learning in many different ways.