It’s common for children (and adults) to experience difficulty with math, and some may even express that they just don’t like it. This can be due to a variety of factors, such as feeling overwhelmed or frustrated by challenging concepts. For many of us, we tense up at the thought of a math test and equations become a thing of the past once summer time rolls around. Not the case for Girl Scout Cadette Anastasia! She earned her Silver Award by helping other kids meet their math milestones while having fun in a project she called “Make Math Easy.” Anastasia discovered that playing games is an effective and engaging way for students to learn math and that they challenge students to use relevant skills, such as solving equations, counting, and calculating angles. She used this method to help other kids expand and retain their math skills.
“Instead of using boring flashcard memorization, we would smack cards with a spatula and add them together. Sometimes we would see how far we could throw the dice and add numbers together. If I had a student going into 7th grade, I knew they would be doing a lot of fractions, decimals, and percentages. I created a bingo game where if I call out a fraction, they have to find the equivalent in percentages or decimals.”
Over the course of two summers, Anastasia tutored 15 other students in person and over video calls using fun methods and games that made learning easier and more enjoyable.
“I noticed there was a gap in learning during the summertime with math. Students leave school with math skills and lose some of them during summer break. My goal for this award was to bridge the gap between school years and provide extracurricular help in math to students in grades K through 7. I assisted with keeping their math knowledge fresh for next year and gave people a head start for their next school year. Before meeting with students, I had to do research to figure out what was age-appropriate as a part of the recommended curriculum and then created fun activities to support the learning.”
Congratulations, Anastasia!
