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Engaging Families: Partnering in Meaningful Ways
Infants Through Preschool
Four-year-old Kawika's mom, Pua, strings silk flowers to create a lei (flower necklace). She adds two blue flowers-blue is her son's favorite color-and then a pink. She hands the string to Kawika, who is sitting on the floor, and asks him, "What comes next?" Kawika studies the piles of flowers that he has sorted into pinks, blues, oranges, and greens. He picks up one blue flower, then a second one, and then a pink one. "It goes blue, blue, pink!" Kawika declares triumphantly. He strings the flowers and then selects more blue and pink flowers to extend the pattern. "Good thinking! You figured out the pattern," Pua says, encouraging her son's mathematical reasoning.
OBSERVING THIS 'OHANA (FAMILY IN Hawaiian), it is clear that Kawika's problem-solving skills are growing and that Pua is supporting his development. Through a playful and familiar activity-making a lei-this mother promotes her son's mathematical learning.
Kawika and Pua took part in the 'Ohana Math program-a state-sponsored family mathematics project that addressed the newly developed Hawai'i Early Learning and Development Standards (HELDS) (Hawai'i P-3 2013). Pua provided valuable feedback about her experiences with Kawika incorporating activities from a math-athome guide into her family's daily routine.
Through our work with early childhood educators, young children, and families, we identified mathematics as a content area in which parents and teachers feel less comfortable in supporting their children's learning and development. Coupled with support from a growing body of research that identifies strong numeracy skills as vital for children's success in school and in life, the project team (the three authors) created the 'Ohana Math program to provide Hawaii's families with easily incorporated resources to promote meaningful learning in mathematics. Our work came at a time when Hawai'i was investing in and expanding the early childhood education system to include publically funded preschool. The purpose of the 'Ohana Math project was to strengthen home-school partnerships, increase children's opportunities to develop math skills and knowledge in their everyday lives, and provide a developmentally appropriate way for families to learn about and support their children's mathematical thinking and understanding. In this article, we share the story of the 'Ohana Math project, in which we focused on providing...