Valentine’s Day Kids Math Help Activity!

By Mathnasium | February 4, 2020

Valentine’s Day is all about finding opportunities to express our love and appreciation for the people and things that have a positive impact on our lives. At Mathnasium, of course this includes the subject of math itself! We have seen firsthand that those who love and enjoy math are more successful in school and life. This is why we provide kids math help in the way that allows our students to truly understand math, and often even come to love it!

9 Fun Activities to Prevent Summer Learning Loss (and Boost Math Skills)

By Mathnasium | June 11, 2018

Long summer days invite the family to spend extra time relaxing, playing, and connecting. Many parents also look for ways bolster their children’s math skills, but family time should be fun, not stressful! We compiled nine fun family activities that help combat “the summer learning loss phenomenon” (a.k.a. “the summer slide”) in math and create lasting memories.

Proportional Thinking (Number Sense Series, Part 3)

By Mathnasium | May 14, 2018

“If the world was the size of a basketball, my house would be as big as a flea’s flea!”

This is an example of how a seven year old once expressed proportional thinking to Mathnasium’s Co-Founder and Chief Education Officer, Larry Martinek. Of course, this seven year old didn’t know he was expressing proportional thinking at the time, he just knew it was fun to think about familiar objects changing size in relation to other familiar objects!

“Wholes and Parts” (Number Sense Series, Part 2)

By Mathnasium | March 13, 2018

Number Sense is the ability to appreciate the size and scale of numbers in the context of the question at hand. Three elements establish Number Sense: Counting, Wholes and Parts, and Proportional Thinking. We already introduced Counting in Part 1 of our Number Sense Series. Today, we will focus on Wholes and Parts.

The two aspects of the concept of Wholes and Parts form the backdrop for many mathematical concepts: fractions and complements.

Artist Hillel Smith: Using Math to Create Art

By Mathnasium | February 12, 2018

Every single day, Hillel Smith uses math to create art. It’s not “fractal art” or computer-driven design. He simply needs math to produce the art itself—everything from huge outdoor murals to inflatable sculptures. 

“At a basic level, having an understanding of geometry is practical, making things at a size that can be framed, or knowing how far a can of paint will go,” he said. “The challenge is working with projects that require a higher level of art thinking, such as my pixelated pieces and some of the mural projects. I do a lot of ‘solving for X,’ dimension analysis, ratios and proportions, fractions, and unit conversions.”

When Should Kids Start Learning Math?

By Mathnasium | February 5, 2018

Math is more than just addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. Most math skills are so intuitive to adults that you might not even think of them as belonging to the same category as algebra or trigonometry. Kids start learning math much earlier than you might think. You can start teaching your child the fundamentals of math almost from the day he or she is born.

Math Is More Than Numbers

By Mathnasium | January 8, 2018

Using Math to Improve Important Life Skills

On the surface, math may seem like it’s all about numbers and formulas. However, this versatile subject is about much more than just counting, adding, and subtracting. Discover why math is more than numbers, and find out how it contributes to the development of valuable skills in problem solving, critical thinking, language, and more.

Getting Past Counting on Fingers and Toes

By Mathnasium | January 17, 2017

When very young children first learn how to count, they use their fingers as manipulatives (physical objects used to teach math concepts).

However, many kids continue to rely on their fingers as their primary computation tools once they move on to mastering addition and subtraction. It is at this juncture that finger counting becomes problematic. While this computation method can be effective to an extent when working with small numbers, it ultimately stifles a child’s mathematical development by keeping them in the limiting headspace of one-by-one counting.

As such, finger counters soon find that this technique quickly becomes cumbersome, inefficient—and more often than not, inaccurate—once they start working with bigger numbers.

It is far more effective in the long term to encourage students to develop numerical fluency. What is numerical fluency? It’s a student’s ability to recall basic number facts mentally and effortlessly by way of developing frameworks for learning. For instance, a fundamental cornerstone of numerical fluency is learning to see and work with numbers in groups mentally rather than one by one.

Let’s look at some examples of numerical fluency in action!

9 + 7

A one-by-one counter attempts to solve this by figuring out “9 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1.” By contrast, a student who has developed numerical fluency (and therefore, a broader understanding of the relationships between numbers and how numbers work) solves this problem mentally by working with a friendlier number, in this case, 10:

9 + 1 = 10

10 + 6 = 16

(As one-by-one counters develop numerical fluency, they’ll discover very quickly that the number 10 is their friend!)

Let’s try 7 + 8!

Instead of thinking, “7 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1,” a numerically fluent child sees that 8 is one more than 7 and can default to the strategy of doubling 7 and adding 1:

7 + 7 = 14

14 + 1 = 15

Let’s do one more!

13 – 9

In this situation, our friend, the number 10, comes in handy once again! How far apart are 13 and 9? Well, 9 is 1 away from 10, and 13 is 3 away from 10. Add the differences together and you get the answer, 4. This is far more efficient than thinking, “13 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1”!

When children transition to techniques beyond using their fingers for computation, their confidence with counting and numbers in general will grow exponentially, and their ability to handle larger numbers effortlessly will follow. As time progresses and they bid farewell to basic addition and subtraction practice, numerically fluent students will find it easier to tackle more complex operations like multiplication and division. While building numerical fluency won’t happen overnight (it requires steady, consistent practice working with these frameworks over time), students will continuously reap the benefits of becoming stronger, more nimble problem solvers and mathematical thinkers … long after they close the books on elementary math!

Achieving numerical fluency is a critical step on the path toward developing solid number sense—an intuitive, logical understanding of how numbers work. Mathnasium offers personalized programs designed to help students of all ages develop numerical fluency. Contact your neighborhood math experts to learn more!

STEM In Action: How Scientists Use Math in Space

By Mathnasium | June 7, 2016

(Are you a “space ace”? Scientists use math to learn about space ALL the time. They use math to get to space, they use math in space, they use math to analyze what they learn in space. The possibilities for math in space are endless! Here’s some basic math-based science that will blow your mind!)

Have you ever wondered why astronauts can jump so high on the moon?

It’s because the force of gravity on the moon is lower than it is on Earth!

Simply put, gravity is the force that attracts two objects to each other. On a larger scale, our sun’s gravitational pull keeps neighboring planets in their orbits. The Earth’s gravity is what keeps our moon it its orbit as well! On a more personal level, a planet’s surface gravity is the force that literally keeps you down to Earth… or Mars… or Jupiter. It affects how quickly objects fall to a planet’s surface when dropped.

A planet’s size, mass (the amount of matter, or “stuff,” in an object), and density (how compact something is; for example, a rock is denser than a cotton ball) affect the strength of its gravitational pull. These variables are different for all planets in our solar system, which means that the force of gravity differs from planet to planet.

Weight is a measurement that expresses the force of gravity acting on an object. Because each planet has its own gravitational pull, it then follows that our weight would be different on each planet, too!

You can use math to make your space-inspired daydreams just a little more real by calculating how much you’d weigh on other planets! Below is a list of other planets’ gravitational forces expressed proportionally (in comparison) to that of Earth’s (source). We’ve even included the moon and dwarf-planet Pluto.

Multiply your weight on Earth by any of these values and voila—you’ll know your weight on a neighboring planet or satellite!

Mercury: 0.378

Venus: 0.907

Moon: 0.166

Earth: 1

Mars: 0.377

Jupiter: 2.36

Saturn: 0.916

Uranus: 0.889

Neptune: 1.12

Pluto: 0.071

Fun fact: Photos of astronauts floating around seemingly weightless in space may make you believe that there’s no gravity in outer space at all. The truth is that there’s a very small amount of gravity in space, which is referred to as “microgravity.” Learn more about microgravity here!