Written By: Kailee Kee, Michelle Kim, Hana Chang, Sejal Kanikaram, and Sydney Tung
This year has been hard for us all, especially for elementary school students. Buddies4Math wanted to bring some joy into their lives, and let them know that they have a buddy even though we can’t be with them in person. Because of the hard work from the BTB Staff and B4M tutors, we are able to bring school curriculum in a fun way to our Mountain View students. Read on to see what Buddies4Math has been up to with our Theuerkauf students!
Icebreakers
Every session begins with a short icebreaker activity. These activities are meant to help the students build relationships with each other and with the tutors, and to get them warmed up and ready to learn! The icebreakers usually involve giving each student an opportunity to speak, such as in Story Circle (where each student or tutor makes up a sentence to add to a group story), or Wheel of Questions (in which each student is asked a random question from the Question Wheel). Icebreakers are a great time for students to get to know each other better and have fun.
Math
Over this year’s sessions we have done Google Tours and math activities. Over the summer, we have created Google tours and math activities based on the Mountain View math curriculum to use during our weekly sessions. In each Google Tour, we took the students to different places such as New York City, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and more. The Google tours and math activities challenged the students but they were able to solve them. Students really enjoyed the Google tours because they were able to see different places from their home.
Reading
This year, students in 2nd and 3rd grade read books such as The Cat in the Hat, Joe Scores a Goal, Grandpa’s Secret Potion, and The Journey of the Noble Gnarble. Students took turns reading out loud and answering comprehension questions. They showed a lot of perseverance when sounding out difficult words and reading these books! Students in 4th and 5th grade read the books Out of My Mind and Holes (which are both phenomenal), encouraging them to develop a passion for reading.
Math Carnival
After all the hard work our students have put in over the course of the year, we wanted to end things off on a fun note. In normal years, Buddies4Math hosts a math carnival where students can play fun math games to earn prizes. Since we could not host it in person, we decided to create an online version! Over the course of the fall sessions, the students had the opportunity to earn points through participating, and had another chance during our last session to earn extra points through playing a fun Kahoot! We ended things off with a shopping experience, where students worked one-on-one with tutors to use their points to “buy” prizes. These prizes were later packaged by us and sent out to the students. We appreciate the positivity and being able to connect with the students, even in an online format. We miss you all and can’t wait to see you again next year!
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