Struggling with Math?

As a parent, you may feel that that math isn’t your thing, or that you really don’t know much about it and even less confident about how to answer their math questions.

Here’s a couple of tips if you also struggle with math:

1. Avoid saying things like “Here comes a tricky part…” You’ll be amazed at how many times your child will do things easily that you thought might be hard.

2. If you do not have happy memories about a particular math area, avoid saying
   “That’s ok, I was never very good at math either”. You are tempting your child to follow your lead. You wouldn’t say, “That ok to no learn to read… I was never good at it either.”

Let your student discover things for themselves, rather than describing how it is to be done in advance. In science, no scientist in their right mind would do an experiment they already know the answer to! Math is the same way. Let your child find different ways of doing things, different from what you were expecting. Discuss (without pointing out right or wrong) the many ways things can be done.

When your child makes mistakes, use this as an opportunity to explore what happened and see if something got confused somewhere, or needs to be reinforced. If your child tries several times to grasp something and it still isn’t happening, STOP. Your child is not failing. They are giving you a message that either (a) they are not ready or (b) the approach needs to change or (c) some background information is missing.

It’s best for your child to seek out their own readiness level naturally and on their own. Most children have different physical and mental timetables for development, and pushing a child with hopes of speeding things up or catching up will not only frustrate and discourage your child, but it also sends the message that they are not good enough at the level they currently are at.

…and MOST IMPPORTANTLY…

Most important of all, our learning should be enjoyable and fun. Learning and “math work” should be indistinguishable from play time. I sincerely hope that your child will share many happy hours with mathematics that are as rewarding and memorable as their experiences on the playground with their best friends.

How a Child Learns (Four Levels of Learning)

This math course provides a structure and a methodology for understanding numbers and developing a number sense, using those skills and applying them to the real world. In this course, there are demonstrations, explanations, examples, skill practice, activities, games, and real-life applications in science and engineering.

This approach to learning mathematics allows students to progress through the four levels of learning easily. Here they are:

1. Rote memorization (being able to repeat something back, like multiplication tables, which is learned but not understood)
2. Understanding (comprehending or grasping the nature or meaning of something, as through teacher demonstrations and explanations)
3. Application (the act of putting something to use that has been learned and understood, as using math skills to build a house)
4. Correlation (associating what has been learned, understood and applied with previous or subsequent learning; new connections made that were never there before.)

(If you’d like more information on the levels of learning, please click here.)

As a parent, you should not be concerned about repeating or preempting what your child is learning in our math classes, as many kids benefit from repetition and reinforcement in different contexts before they fully grasp a concept. Most of these concepts your child can practice using everyday things in life.

Children’s learning is rarely predictable and tidy.

Every child will have particular opportunities or needs that will suggest going through things at different speeds or in a particular order. For the most part, your child will be able to do this math course on their own, but there may be times when they’ll need a little help. You know your child best, and by taking a little extra time to work individually with your child up front, this will really set them up for success long-term because you’re helping them when they need it most.

Most of the time, your child will be working on more than one skill simultaneously. It is easier for students to have more than one area to work with at a time, as they can work on one area while letting the more difficult idea have time to sink in. Remind your student that it’s ok if things don’t seem to be presented in a controlled or logical way.

It’s best for your child to seek out their own readiness level naturally and on their own. Most children have different physical and mental timetables for development, and pushing a child with hopes of speeding things up or catching up will not only frustrate and discourage your child, but it also sends the message that they are not good enough at the level they currently are at.

We already have more than enough stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and discouraged children in the world. Please be willing to switch to a different step and drop an activity entirely if your child does not seem ready or interested. You may be surprised at how perfectly suited they are within a week or month for that very same activity or skill.

If your student does not like math, usually it’s because they had an experience with math being hard, unpleasant, boring, and useless.

Our math curriculum focuses on making math a fun, natural part of their everyday life by showing the students that mathematics is a part of things that happen all around us, every day.

Making Math Practical and Useful in Everyday Life

Math is in the kitchen when you count and measure things for baking cookies. It’s in the road trip that you take; the gas you use, the miles you travel, the time it takes to get there. It’s having enough money to pay for the things you want and need, and making sure you have enough until your next paycheck.

Math is the driving force behind business decisions; how much to charge customers, how much to spend on staff and marketing, how much inventory you can keep and how long you can expect it to stay on the shelves.

Students will be learning through problem solving throughout this course. When your child figures out how something works, new connections are being make in ways that aren’t possible teach just by watching something. By learning through active problem solving, students are more engaged in the learning process. This breaks your child out of the passively watching to taking an active role in their own education. Problem solving is a critical skill for life, even outside of mathematics. There are problems everywhere you look, and being able to tackle them is a learned skill we teach our kids.

Resist the temptation to have your child memorize something that they are struggling with. It is not true learning when you simply memorize a rule or process.

Make the extra effort to understand why the ideas work, and learn how to apply those ideas. The material is more interesting and easier to remember and use in the future because it becomes integrated with their experience of the world.

If your child doesn’t see how to go about solving a problem, use this as an opportunity to work on those problem-solving skills. Ask them if there are any ways to turn that problem into something they’ve seen before, something they already have experience with.

Encourage your child to wrestle with complex and difficult problems, and celebrate their partial answers and ideas, even if they are wrong or don’t quite solve the problem. We’re going for enthusiasm and effort more than accuracy, especially if they have not had a positive, happy experience with mathematics.

Most students have already had some math classes before coming to this course. Typical skills covered are: various types of numbers (whole, integer, mixed, negative, fraction, improper, decimal, percent), how to convert between these types of numbers, and how to add, subtract, multiply and divide any combination of them.

Most math courses over-focus on calculation skills. This makes math dry, boring and full of procedures. It feels isolated and useless with endless problems that all look the same. Students lose all sense of numbers, and have no idea how to have fun playing with math. And one of the primary purposes of math, using math to ask questions and figure out answers, is completely lost.

Calculation skills are important, but they are not the whole deal. It’s more like saying if you know how to spell, then you can write literature. There’s so much more that goes into writing a book, or in our case, learning mathematics. However, it’s not always straightforward to teach, so most math teachers focus on what they know and what is easily testable on an exam: how to calculate.

We will spend time mastering the mechanics of calculation skills, and also learn how to apply these to the real world. We will have a lot of fun discovering how exciting math can be when you really know how to use it!