Connecting Home, School, and Community Through Playful Math:  First 10’s Young Mathematician’s Initiative in York, Pennsylvania

“One of the things that districts can learn is that you can benefit from this proactive collaborative partnership, with not only community-based early childhood programs, but also school-based programs, by aligning curriculum, sharing resources, sharing data and most importantly, engaging families.”

– Superintendent Andrea Berry-Brown, Ed.D., School District of the City of York, Pennsylvania

Dear Colleague,

Moderated by the Heising-Simons Foundation’s Kimberly Brenneman, Ph.D., the May 6, 2025 Crucible of Practice Salon illustrated the success of the Young Mathematician’s (YM) initiative from the perspective of a range of educators who are implementing the program in the City of York. 

David Jacobson, Ph.D., of Education Development Center (EDC) began by providing an overview of the First 10 philosophy, framework, and evaluation results. He also talked about First 10 in York City and why they were an ideal site for the YM pilot project. Then EDC’s Kristen Reed described the YM initiative, explaining how it introduces important math concepts through games. YM includes over 50 math games for children ages 3–6 and also includes an important family math component.

Andrea Berry-Brown, Ed.D., superintendent of the School District of the City of York, explained why she felt that First 10 was an important strategy to meet the needs of students, families, and teachers in York and discussed the reasons for becoming a YM pilot site. Following this overview, two teachers in the district, Jennifer Wilson and Airiana Kibbler, discussed how they are using the games in their classrooms and the ways they are seeing their students build their math and vocabulary skills by playing the games. Each showed a short video of young people playing YM games. Sakeenah Sweeney, Ed.D., with iCare Youniversity, also shared her experience using the games in early education settings, noting the ways they can be used to connect with families. Angela Ashley, Ed.D., the York school district’s Pre-K Counts Principal, talked about the ways she has seen the YM initiative help teachers build their confidence in teaching math skills and discussed the ways the pre-K professional learning communities and kindergarten math centers were improving math instruction.

Jessica Young, Ph.D., with EDC, discussed what they are learning through the evaluation of the initiative, including ways that teachers were improving their math teaching practice and families were incorporating math activities at home. The session wrapped up with Superintendent Berry-Brown expressing what she sees as the critical highlights of the YM initiative — engaging families and fostering collaborative relationships.