Crazy 8’s Math Club

Here at the annual National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) conference, we just came across a company that – this is something that we never thought we would say – has made math club pretty cool. When you think of math and math club, some of the very last words you think about is fun or cool. However, those are exactly the sort of word that Bedtime Math is looking to evoke with their new Crazy8s Math Club. Here is how the company describes the Club:

Bedtime Math is excited to announce Crazy 8s, a brand new, over-the-top after-school club designed to get kids fired up about math. Every week they get to build stuff, run and jump, make music, make a mess… and make friendships at the same time. It’s time for math to become the cool thing to do after school.¹

Bedtime Math offers a Crazy 8s Club Kit to schools for free, that’s right, free. Each of these kits is designed for 10-20 children. The kit comes in three different age-based levels: preK, grades K-2 and grades 3-5. Each kit contains a ton of fun, hands-on activities for kids. Some of them sound pretty fun to me:

Crazy 8s clubs meet on a weekly basis for 8 weeks (4 weeks for preschool), with mischief-making activities like Bouncy Dice Explosion and Toilet Paper Olympics. It’s time to make math club the cool thing to do. For that reason, Crazy 8s is not meant to meet during the regular school day… if we find out the materials are being used in the classroom, we’ll track you down and toilet-paper your house. ²

We had a chance to swing by the Bedtime Math booth here at the NAESP conference. We learned a bit more about Crazy 8s Math Club, as well as some of the wacky activites: