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AIS students have fun with math
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Mackenzie Kuhns, a fifth-grader at Austintown Intermediate School, showed off the tower she made out of cups and paper plates during the AIS Tallest Tower Challenge at the school’s Family Math Night Nov. 19. Kuhns’ tower measured 20 1/2 inches.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Bradley Brewer (left), a fifth-grade student at Austintown Intermediate School, and his mother Ginny Jenkins, were all smiles after Brewer finished his tower made of cups during the AIS Tallest Tower Challenge at the school’s Family Math Night Nov. 19. Brewer’s tower was one of the winners at 29 inches.
By ABBY SLANKER
Austintown Intermediate School invited students and their families to have some fun with math during Family Math Night Nov. 19. Each grade was assigned its own math activities and games for the students to complete with their families.
“We are playing math games here tonight as a fun way to learn. With the students’ families here, they can take these activities home and practice there, too,” said Marijo Matune, instructional coach.
The event had a big turnout, with approximately 200 people from the three grades at the school and several staff members.
“We have math teachers here tonight and language arts staff and anyone else who wanted to help. We have a great turnout of our staff,” Matune said.
The fifth-grade students and their families gathered in the cafeteria and accepted the AIS Tallest Tower Challenge from Matune.
“The idea of this game is to build the tallest tower from items you buy from the AIS store. Each student will have $10 to spend at the store and must fill out their order form and must correctly add up how much their materials are going to cost before they can go shopping. The tower must be freestanding and cannot be attached to anything,” Matune explained.
Materials the students could purchase included a three-pack of cups, a 12-inch strip of tape, a pack of 10 snap cubes, a pack of six craft sticks, a pack of five straws, a pack of four paper plates, a pack of three twisty ties, a pack of three paper clips and one pair of scissors.
As the children and their parents filled out their order forms and did the math, Matune added a few more guidelines.
A time limit of 20 minutes was placed on the students and the parents could not touch the materials. There would be no change given at the store and students could only visit the store once. As a final touch, Matune told the students their tower must be able to support the weight of a marshmallow and it must be placed at the top of the tower.
As time ticked away, the students got busy building their towers, with a few having to rethink their original design. When a student was finished with their tower, it was measured with a yardstick and the height was recorded.
When each tower was measured, Matune told the students the winner would receive $100,000.
After whittling it down, it was determined two students tied with a winning measurement of 29 inches. The two students had to split their winnings - a 100 Grand candy bar.
“Our big thing at AIS is making the connection between parents and kids. It’s my personal mission that the administration and school staff is on the same page. We must all work together to be successful. Our school is big but we still need to do little things. We don’t want to lose our neighborhood community feel. We like to do a few different things to pull everyone together, like Family Math Night and Family Literacy Night,” said Jeffrey Swavel, Austintown Intermediate School principal.
To end the evening, third- and fourth-grade students and their families joined the fifth-graders and their families in the cafeteria while Swavel handed out prizes for the event.