Bringing the program all the way from Ithaca, the president of the program, Suzanne Kuntz, and her team reached out to the schools in Dunkirk, asking them if they’d like to host their program.

“I hope we can make an impact on the kids and help them see that math can be fun,” said Jonica LeRoux, consultant for the Math & Movement program.

A kinesthetic learner is a person that learns best through movement, which according to the Math & Movement program, 80% of kids are kinesthetic learners. The program encourages parents to include kinesthetic learning style activities when they teach their children.

The Math & Movement program focuses on the health of children as well as how they learn. The program believes that childhood obesity is a major problem in our nation today, with there being over 12 million children who are living with the disease.

Kaitlin Huyler, a student from Fredonia State, and Anastasia Vega, a student from Dunkirk Upward Bound, assist Carmen Bagan's daughter Jadeth with counting money.

The demonstrators of the program hope to encourage parents to use this style of learning to help children stay active while simultaneously helping their learning. The program says that the end result hopefully teaches at least two things, which include higher test scores and physically fit children.

There were several volunteers who attended the program to help out with doing activities with the kids and teaching them that math can be fun. The volunteers were from both Fredonia State and the Dunkirk Upward Bound program. The event was successful at School 5, the families who attended had a lot of fun learning and playing all at the same time. The organizers could tell the children were having a great time.

“The kids were really into it! Some of them were having so much fun they didn’t even want to move onto the next activity,” said Sylvia Root, Dunkirk schools interim superintendent.

Overall, everybody had a good evening; “This is our first time hosting this program at School 5 and I’m glad it went over so well. It was a great addition to our family fun nights,” said David Boyda, School 5 principal.

Olivia MacWilliams, a volunteer from Fredonia State, high fives a young girl.