When 9-year-old Mateo used his index finger to measure the length of his foot while building a model sneaker from cardboard and rubber bands, he wasn’t just playing—he was doing real math. At his kitchen table in upstate New York, Mateo was one of seven families across the Northeast and Midwest participating in a groundbreaking study led by Dr. Amber Simpson, associate professor at Binghamton University’s College of Community and Public Affairs. Her research, published in Mathematical Thinking and Learning, reveals that some of the most powerful math learning happens not in classrooms, but in homes, through hands-on engineering challenges using everyday materials.
Simpson’s work began with a simple question: What happens to children’s STEM learning when the school day ends? To find out, her team developed 12 MAKEngineering kits designed for children in grades two through six. Each kit posed an open-ended engineering challenge—like building a prototype animal shelter that could withstand extreme weather—requiring families to research, plan, create, test, improve, and reflect. The tasks were intentionally flexible, ensuring no two solutions looked alike. What emerged from video recordings was a rich tapestry of mathematical thinking: children using geometric reasoning to stabilize structures, applying informal measurement techniques, and engaging in proportional reasoning when scaling designs.
One pair of siblings constructing a birdhouse debated the angle of the roof to maximize rain protection while adding a horizontal ledge for perching—decisions rooted in spatial reasoning and practical geometry. But the most surprising insight wasn’t about the children. It was about the parents. "There's this assumption that parents do not have the knowledge and skills to sometimes do mathematics," Simpson said. "But I think what we're trying to argue is that parents and caregivers do have the knowledge to support their kids as mathematicians in ways that are grounded in their familiar ways of acting." Even more revealing was the role of siblings: older children often guided younger ones, shaping their problem-solving approaches, while twins offered a unique window into collaborative reasoning.
The study reframes math not as a set of abstract rules, but as something lived and embodied—"not just something we do, but something we experience, embody, utilize, and interpret in context." Simpson advocates for elevating "non-school math" to equal status with traditional classroom instruction. Now, she’s working to bridge the gap between research and practice, developing professional development kits that ask teachers to engage in these same tasks before bringing them to students. While widespread classroom adoption isn’t here yet, the vision is clear: to honor the mathematical intelligence already thriving in homes, one kitchen-table build at a time.