Croton-Harmon Schools Host CET Math Expo

From Croton Harmon Schools: Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School third-graders tackled math word problems about timely seasonal topics, courtesy of Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School students during Croton-Harmon’s first CET Math Expo.

Fifth-graders studied the third-grade curricula – with some students even spying on their siblings’ homework – to develop math problems appropriate to their grade level. The PVC students created three levels of problems for their younger peers to solve and awarded them paper turkey feathers for correctly answering the questions. The turkey feathers were in turn taken back to their classrooms where they were used to create a class turkey.

“The fifth-grade students wrote word problems for the third-grade students to solve and each word problem started with a little story or blurb that is seasonal,” said fifth-grade teacher Kira Herbert.

The expo not only allowed the two grade levels to comingle, but gave the third-grade students a taste of what life is like at the middle school. In addition, the fifth-grade students were tasked with collecting data from the third-graders’ responses, which they will analyze for trends and share with the third-grade teachers.

“They are starting to tally and pull different statistics and see the different patterns that the kids are assessing as they go through the different stations,” said fifth-grade teacher Erica Camillo. Fifth-grade student Samantha said she hoped the day was a productive one for her younger peers.

“I want them to get better math skills,” she said. “Hopefully, they will be really good at math by the time they come into our grade.”

Images Courtesy Of Croton-Harmon Schools