Photo By Robert Timmons | Kahlan Staie, a sixth grade student at C. C. Pinckney Elementary School, checks the...... read more read more
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It’s not every day that young shoppers, barely tall enough to see over a shopping cart, can tell their parent which box groceries are the best buy, but one C.C. Pinckney Elementary School program is aiming to change that.
The school’s Math Night at the Commissary event, held Jan. 18 at the Fort Jackson Commissary, used a real-world approach to putting mathematics in action.
The event “gives our students and their families an opportunity to practice their math skills that they learn in the classroom in a real world setting,” said Amy Watford, a faculty member at the school.
Each student participating in the event is sent into the aisles armed with a sheet of five or more questions they need to answer. The types and difficulty of the questions is based on each child’s grade level.
“It is broken down by their math standards by grade level,” said Dr. Kerrie Ammons, Pinckney school speech pathologist. “Some of the kids are going to be looking at weight and doing conversions, while some of our kids are going to be look at labels for nutritional information.”
For instance, second grade students headed to the frozen food section to determine whether waffles, TV dinners or pies have the longest shelf life.
Since 2015 Pinckney students have been flooding the Commissary each year for the event that prioritizes critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
For sixth-grade student Kahlan Staie the event is fun and a way to more easily understand math.
She said that some students can understand math more easily by using actual objects rather than just theoretical ideas.
“I am a better visual learner than a theoretical one,” she said.
Kahlan’s mother, Aida, accompanied her to the event and “loved” it.
“I think it’s great to get the community involved and its great for the kids to actually learn what goes into grocery shopping,” Aida said.
Aida grew up in England where the schools held events like this all the time.
It was important to her that “having a night that you actually can come out and show your kids, how much it’s going to be to get some groceries, especially in this economy.”
School faculty were on hand to provide assistance if a student needed help.
Ammons said it is so neat that they get to see their teachers, at the Commissary a place that they shop and not in the school building. It’s nice to see the teacher in a different location than the school.”
The yearly event is one of many events the school holds each year that emphasizes mathematics. Every year the school also hosts a Math Prize Patrol where random students are given prizes
| Date Taken: | 01.25.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 01.25.2024 11:55 |
| Story ID: | 462424 |
| Location: | FORT JACKSON, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 30 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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