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The Impact of After-School Math Club on Elementary Student Math Anxiety
Caroline Virden, Lee Dean, and Liza Bondurant

Many students experience math anxiety, which can harm mathematics achievement. Taking part in fun, hands-on, inquiry-based math activities has been shown to decrease student anxiety. For four semesters, we ran an after-school mathematics club at Presbyterian Day School in Cleveland, MS for students in grades 3-5. The activities and materials were supplied by Crazy 8s Math Club (a Bedtime Math company). In this manuscript, we share three specific activities that encouraged both student engagement and problem-solving skills. Then we discuss survey results from the Crazy 8s Math Club as they relate to lower student math anxiety.

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From Mirrors to Wallpapers: A Virtual Math Circle Module on Symmetry
Nicole A. Sullivant, Christina L. Duron, and Douglas T. Pfeffer

Symmetry is a natural property that children see in their everyday lives; it also has deep mathematical connections to areas like tiling and objects like wallpaper groups. The Tucson Math Circle (TMC) presents a 7-part module on symmetry that starts with reflective symmetry and culminates in the deconstruction of wallpapers into their ‘generating tiles’. This module utilizes a scaffolded, hands-on approach to cover old and new mathematical topics with various interactive activities; all activities are made available through free web-based platforms. In this paper, we provide lesson plans for the various activities used, and discuss their online implementation with Zoom, Miro, and the TMC Widget. We touch on the benefits and disadvantages of the online environment, and provide suggestions for moving these activities to an in-person format. We also include links to files in our Google Drive, where members of the Math Circle community can download our worksheets and Miro board templates.