Although I did not directly question them about ideas for teaching math in the preliminary interview, I still conclude that the ideas above were new to them, and arose out of their experience in the group. I base this conclusion on the fact that so many of them expressed surprise that math could be fun, or that activities that seem to have no math in them in fact can be used to develop math thinking. When I did the group feedback session at the Reading and Writing Centre in November, after we had been meeting for seven weeks, a participant said she was having fun with the activities, but she didn’t see how they were about math. I asked the group to make a list of all the activities we had done so far—Yahtzee, Rummoli, play dough, measuring, making chalk, human numbers, doubling money, art with shapes, and telling time. We agreed they had all been fun, and then went over the list again to say where and what the math was in each activity. Participants were able to do see the math when the task was set in front of them, but had not been focusing on that aspect of the activities.

Parents’ Evaluation of the Group

When the project evaluator asked participants to rate the value of the group sessions, they overwhelmingly gave it a five on a five-point scale. Every one of the 18 participants who came for a final test/interview showed enthusiasm (“Great, I liked it a lot,”) or said it was interesting or fun, or all three. They liked the chance to learn informally and experientially, to express their opinions and to meet other parents. One person attributed these characteristics of the group to the facilitation style when she said, “The instructor was gentle, open, and got parents interacting with each other” (Evaluator’s report).

They generally characterized the facilitation style as “informal” and liked it because it included everyone, even the kids who sometimes came to one of the groups. One said that the informal atmosphere, with the emphasis on activities rather than on mental processes, meant that “the Instructor was able to slow things down and make space for me to understand.”

Experiential learning

Making things was another activity that parents enjoyed for its own sake. At different sessions we made sidewalk chalk, and play dough. The parents knew about both those things, had bought them for their children, but had never thought about making them They enjoyed finding out for themselves how easy it was to make them, and the fact that it was cheaper to make yourself was a bonus. The group at the Reading and Writing Centre made the play dough, because they had a stove available, and I took in two different recipes. Half the group used one recipe, half the other, and everybody tried out some of both kinds, and a discussion ensued about which recipe was better. When I asked which recipe I should put in the manual, someone said I should put both in. She said, “Half the fun was making them both and comparing them.” Several others agreed. Similarly, when the group made cookies, there were two different recipes, and again part of the fun was in comparing them—both the results and the difficulty/ease of making each one. One participant summed it up: “The hands-on approach was good, and allowed for a visual and tactile approach.”

Meeting other parents

Meeting other parents was important to many participants; they liked getting to know one another, and said they learned from each other. Most liked to work in pairs on the activities, and they were interested in the variety of ways people went about solving problems. One said, “Everyone had a different learning style and approach and they were all right.”