Maria's Math News, September 2018

Hi — and welcome to the September edition of math tips:

Math Mammoth news
Find factors puzzles
A Tip for all Math Mammoth users
A broken calculator game
A new geometric shape!

1. Math Mammoth news

Homeschool Buyers Co-op will run a 30% OFF SALE during September 6-13 for the large Math Mammoth and Make It Real Learning bundles.

Here's the link for it, BUT it will only work starting September 6:

=> Math Mammoth sale at Homeschool Buyers Co-op
NEW! Check out the lesson plans "PLUS" versions — they include BOTH the Lesson Planet version as well as a PDF file!

NEW! Math Mammoth Grade 5 Skills Review Workbook is now available (digital version)!
Lastly, here is a neat review focusing on the fourth grade curriculum:

Math Mammoth: An Affordable Homeschool Math Program

2. Find factors puzzles

Here are neat puzzles to review factors in multiplication, the multiplication tables — and consequently, the basic division facts — all in the same "package"!

Or, just use them as cool logic puzzles.

This page explains how to solve them.

On this page you'll find a vast amount of them, as Excel spreadsheets.

Like the author says, "The more multiplication facts you know, the easier these puzzles become. Working on these puzzles can help you learn the multiplication table better."

3. A Tip for all Math Mammoth users

$Boy doing math homework$ Don't assign all the problems. (Unless it seems it's absolutely necessary.)

Very recently a customer wrote in and I suggested to her to only assign 1/2 of the problems, and leave the rest for review later on. She had never thought of such and she felt it was a brilliant idea.

This idea is actually mentioned in the Math Mammoth user guides... but who reads those? 😉 I know the curriculum is pretty much open-and-go so there's no obligation to read them. But just keep in mind, you can definitely get creative in how you use Math Mammoth curriculum... and I WANT people to have that freedom. 😊 You CAN even use it in a spiral manner (like I mentioned here a while back).

I posted this on my Facebook page, and it generated a fair amount of discussion.

4. A broken calculator game

Here's a neat game providing a little bit of problem solving (for students in grades 3-12).

Find ways to make numbers from 1-20 with the broken calculator... some keys are simply not available!

5. A new geometric shape!

Mathematics is a progressing field of study... there is lots of research going on all the time. Most of it is over all our heads but here's something a bit more accessible.

Two scutoids

"Scientists have just defined a new shape called the scutoid (SCOO-toid) while studying epithelial cells, the building blocks of embryos that eventually end up forming our skin and lining our organs and blood vessels. They think the scutoid shape is extremely efficient at keeping cells tightly-packed and organized in the literal twists and turns of development."

Read more: The 'Scutoid' Is Geometry's Newest Shape, and It Could Be All Over Your Body

Thanks for reading!

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Till next time,
Maria Miller