FREE MATH ADVICE
I do not pretend to be a math expert or even a math motivator expert. My oldest
loved math and I had little to do with it. However, there are some fun things on line
that my kids enjoy, as well as good books and contests, which I will share with you.
http://www.visualfractions.com/ -my 8 year old likes the games at this site
http://brainpop.com/ has a math section - we do pay for the family membership as
this is highly motivating to my 8 year old, and she will watch several of the educational
clips each day, learning more than I could hope to teach.
Also, books by Theoni Pappas, every one, are high level math concepts made fun
and easy for elementary kids. Cindy Neuschwander also has several excellent math
books (novels) that are for elementary age and very fun and interesting to young
kids. Stewart J Murphy has a whole series called Math Start that are written at varying
levels for elementary kids, and my daughter loves every one of them. Artists like
Escher use math concepts in his work.
My kids loved the Easy Way books by Barrons, especially Algebra, The Easy Way.
They are not expensive, at the library or any bookstore. They were all my oldest son
used through calculus for high school level math.
The Math Olympiad for Elementary Students has elementary age contests or you
can just buy the book and give kids some very challenging, but fun problem solving
math tasks.
Just some things we do as a family that promote math which you may already do:
any score keeping or banking in games is done by my kids, not us. We look for
games where math is a part of it - Triominoes, dominoes, multiplication bingo, tangrams,
etc.
Charlotte and Mecklenburg Math clubs are great. www.davidson.edu/math/davis/
cmc/newcomerGuide.html www.math.uncc.edu/~hbreiter/clubs/mmc.htm (Harold
Reiter's page is full of math tips.)
Math contests have always been very motivating to my kids. Some of the great ones
offered by the HINTS and CHEA organizations include Mathcounts (5th-8th grade),
AMC 8, 10, and 12, and high school contests at UNCC and other locations for Alg.
1, 2 , Geometry or Comprehensive (Harold Reiter's site above mentions more details
on these). I hope this is helpful.
Blessings, Vicky Kaseorg