Spring-break camps make math memorable for Modesto grade-schoolers

Youngsters at Orville Wright and Franklin elementary schools in Modesto have something fun to do over spring break: more math.

“The first day, you could see the desperation in their faces. It felt like they were being forced to do this. But after they’d done it, you can see today, they’re all smiles and rushing right by me to get to class,” said high school math teacher Veronica Chaidez.

“They start arriving at 8:30, and we don’t start until 9. Parents say, ‘He’s waking me up.’ ‘They wanted to be at school.’ ‘We couldn’t get out of the house fast enough,’” she said. “That’s telling us we’re doing it right.”

Chaidez leads the Franklin math camp, new this year. Bjorg Johansdottir, a California State University, Stanislaus, instructor, leads the Orville Wright camp, in place for several years. Viji Sundar of the university math department started the free programs at both low-income schools, as well as a fee-based math camp going on this week at the university.

A second-year teacher at Orestimba High in Newman, Chaidez has a fourth-grader at Franklin. She went to Franklin as a child, but did not fare well in school. After some struggles, she found her calling. Now, Chaidez devotes much of her spare time to helping youngsters learn math fundamentals and do better than she did.

“It’s my way of giving back,” she said as she welcomed second- through fifth-graders through the gate. “The math is embedded right in there, but they think they’re just having fun.”

To be clear, the kids know that’s the plan. Asked what she was learning at camp, fifth-grader Circe Gonzalez answered without hesitation: “Math stuff.” Then she grinned, and went back to work.

Fun activities and games work on skills each grade already should know, shoring up shaky fundamentals and key concepts along the way, Franklin Principal Carol Brooks said via email.

“The hands-on lessons have been thoughtfully designed to engage students. However, when you enter the classroom, it can be difficult to tell who’s having more fun – the students or the instructors,” Brooks said.

At the Franklin camp on Wednesday, Gregori High math teacher Fabian Jauregui dealt from a deck of standard playing cards to help fifth-graders understand fractions – their weak spot, a first-day test showed. “Make the largest fraction you can,” he told them, putting high or low cards above and below an imaginary fraction line.

Did the boy with 13 over 4, or the guy with 13 over 2, win that hand? It took talking them through the division to sort out, and several hands before the light bulbs went on.

Missing a firm grasp of fractions is something Jauregui sees at high school. “There’s a lack of foundational skills. That’s what I see a lot in my freshman classes. Kids 14 and 15 years old lack basics like fractions,” he said. Spending his break teaching fifth-graders, he said, has given him games and strategies he can take back to Gregori.

Across the room, Stanislaus State math major Jaime Trujillo held up a box and talked students through multiplying its dimensions. “There are a lot of different ways that something can be taught,” he said. “I didn’t plan on using a Kleenex box to teach volume today, but that’s what was there.”

The impromptu lesson plans followed the realization from first-day testing that their 75 charges at Franklin needed a different set of lessons than they had planned, Chaidez said.

“The fifth-graders are learning fractions. Second-graders needed place value. The rest are working on multiplication,” she said. “We had it all planned, but we saw the areas with the most deficit and made new games.”

The switch was keyed to help students be ready for state testing starting soon, Chaidez said. Orville Wright parents also are getting extra help, and Franklin parents soon will, through a math literacy program Sundar created to expand on the math camps. Parents are learning math games and activities to help their children at every grade level.

“The learning doesn’t start when the bell rings,” Chaidez said. “I truly believe education starts at home.”

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 5:33 PM with the headline "Spring-break camps make math memorable for Modesto grade-schoolers."