Math Night at Edgartown School has been a long-standing tradition on the Island. A K-8 event, the night includes games and activities for the kids, prizes, and opportunities for community service for the upper-school classmates who volunteer to help out at the event.
The 2026 Math Night was held on April 13. The evening began with a pizza dinner in the cafeteria at 5:30 pm. The gym opened at 6 pm; several math stations were set up, and at the end of the night, people congregated back in the cafeteria for prizes and cookies.
“This family event is intended to engage students and their families in fun, hands-on math activities. There are eight main stations that are split into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, as well as an estimation station, and a math fluency Kahoot Game,” says K-4 math specialist Gail Lachapelle.
Math isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and some kids (and adults) find it intimidating. But playing math games makes the learning process more fun, removes the pressure of wrong answers, helps kids discover patterns, shapes, and measurements, and learn how relevant math is to everyday life.
“This is a nice opportunity for everyone,” Principal Kate Campbell adds. “Kids can go to any station they want and practice fractions, patterns, telling time, and we even have a fun selfie station.”
In the lobby, volunteer students, parents, and teachers manned the two welcome stations. On both tables were containers holding various objects, like puzzle pieces. “The kids estimate the amount of the different objects in the jars,” teacher Mary Ellen Guyther explains. ”The kids win prizes for guessing correctly, but we also have prizes for all the kids, and we send families home with dice and cards so they can continue playing math games together.”
The math stations were led by teachers who volunteered their evening to help out. “The kids can choose beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels at each station,” Lachapelle says. Having these options allowed kids of all ages to partake in the activities.
Activities at the stations included working on angles, word problems, tic-tac-toe, telling time, addition and subtraction, measuring, dice counting, bingo, and a particularly popular station, overseen by Chip Story: Kids paired up or played solo, and signed into an iPad. On a large screen, various math questions came up, with four answers to choose from. Story started out offering easier math problems, like addition and subtraction, and worked up to more advanced questions. The team/person who answered the most questions correctly won. There were loads of excitement and energy coming from both the kids and Story, who was as exuberant as a 10-year-old.
Student Callen Foster said that Mr. Story’s station was his favorite. “It was really fun and not boring. I like math,” he says. When asked what he wants to do when he grows up, he said that he wants to be a hockey player for the Boston Bruins. Though he may not realize it yet, there are several ways math is used in hockey. According to EBSCO, a source for research context, math comes into play through statistics (percentages, ratios, averages), calculating game geometry (angles, distances), and exploring physics (speed, force).
Given the level of excitement among the kids (and adults), I’d say Math Night was a roaring success, and perhaps even sparked a future mathematician or two. “I really like math,” student James Lebbond noted. “There is always an answer to a question. You always know for sure.”