Archive for the ‘Math in Real Life’ Category

Math skills can be hard to retain during summer vacation. Kids may spend hours reading books at the beach and doing crafts at camp, but when do they practice math? Kids who practice math over the summer will have an easier time transitioning to back to school, while kids who don’t may lose a couple [...]

To a kid, there are no sweeter words than summer vacation. No more pencils, no more books…. But this doesn’t mean they can’t have fun learning this summer. Research shows avoiding the “summer slide” can have a profound effect on your child’s learning development. You may already know that DreamBox Learning is a wonderful source for [...]

Here at DreamBox, in our blog and in our monthly parent updates, we talk a lot about the importance of relating math to everyday activities with our kids. My own son has a gift for art and is especially interested in animation. (And while his math test scores are high he’s never been especially motivated to focus on math.) But a memorable way to help kids understand the connection between learning math concepts and something they enjoy in the real world is to ask them what their favorite animated movie is. The animated movies that younger kids love can be a good jumping off point for helping them understand the unlimited possibilities of learning math.

The box claims this game is appropriate for ages 3+. It’s wrong. There’s just no way. Where do I even begin? There are so many chutes and ladders that it’s difficult to discern each individual box on the game board. It’s also hard for my three-year-old to know if she’s moving towards the right or the left. (The board is a series of switchbacks. Start from the bottom left corner and move across to the right. At the end of the row, move up one row and progress from right to left.) Although there are arrows at the end of every row, this does nothing to help when her piece is in the middle of the row.

If you haven't heard, sponsors announced this year's theme for Math Awareness Month - it's Math and the Climate! Held every year in April, Mathematics Awareness Month was started to make others aware of how math affects our world. DreamBox is celebrating all month long with articles about climate math and our free Math Awareness Month activities calendar!

There’s no question that a strong foundation in algebra is one key to raising academic standards, increasing the competitiveness of our future workforce and opening doors to broader career choices for students. But my attention was caught recently by the study of the effects of mandating algebra in 9th grade.

I never liked this game, not even as a kid. However, I recognize the positive benefits of playing games with my 3-year-old Elle, and I could never deprive her of this experience. No matter how painful. However, I’ve recently been saved from some of this pain. I must thank Geetha B. Ramani and Robert S. Siegler of Carnegie Mellon University for their article Promoting Broad and Stable Improvements in Low-Income Children’s Numerical Knowledge Through Playing Number Board Games.

Every day now driving home and listening to the news, I try, like everyone else I imagine, to wrap my head around the kinds of numbers they’re throwing around. The scale of the numbers is incomprehensible. How meaningful is the difference between a billion and a trillion dollars? The best mental illustration I’ve heard recently—and many have repeated it—is that if you spent a million dollars every day from the day Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have spent a trillion dollars.

I recently came across two articles that really caught my eye.The first was in the Wall Street Journal and was a ranking of the best jobs in the US. Mathematician was ranked #1, with Actuary and Statistician holding #2 and #3 respectively. Computer, science, and engineering related jobs also were very well represented in the [...]

While I put out bird seed in my backyard feeder like many of you, I also have helped keep hummingbirds alive through five Seattle winters, traveled to Antarctica and the Canadian tundra to take photographs of birds, and help care for shorebirds and seabirds at a local aquarium. The Christmas Bird Count is one of the big yearly bird events in North America. Counting birds in their winter territories establishes expected norms which helps private and public conservation groups develop appropriate species conservation plans.

If you have children, chances are good that they brought home a box of valentines this week…you may wonder what to do with this box of small cards once the candy is eaten. Well, before you recycle them or put them away in a memory box, try this fun sorting activity. Help your children look for ways to sort the valentines into groups (such as “Valentines with hearts” and “Valentines without hearts”). Once they get the hang of it, try using multiple categories.

Who says Valentine’s Day is only about Hallmark and sugar? Classrooms can find creative ways to expand this holiday into a great learning opportunity. Try having your class send a valentine to their favorite number! This can be a great thing to put up on a bulletin board for the day of the big party.

I’m increasingly conscious of the gap between the urgent calls for more effective math education in the U.S., and the seemingly low expectations some parents have for their own child to advance in math. It’s as if the pressing national need has nothing to do with us on a personal level. I hear parents talk about their child’s math performance, and say things like “I was never good in math either.” Or regarding newer ways of teaching math, I’ve heard “I don’t like the ‘new math’ because I wasn’t taught that way.”

I took my two young boys, ages 5 and 3, to the Seattle Children's Museum on Sunday and was quite impressed with their new exhibit "Go Figure!". Here, in one of our very own museums, is a great exhibit that has a dozen or more engaging ways for kids to think about math!

Yesterday - the day after Thanksgiving, black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year - we braved the mall crowds to videotape a series of "man on the street" interviews with more than 50 kids! We're shooting a short video on what children want to be when they grow up, and as always, they can really surprise you.