Maria's Math News, May 2024

Hello again!

Math Mammoth news
Calendar activities online (grades 1-3)
Request
How would you solve 31 × 12?
Just for fun!

1. Math Mammoth news

My traditional MAY SALE is here!

Get Math Mammoth and Make It Real Learning digital downloads at 28% off at the MathMammoth.com website. Use coupon code FESP-QJQ7-QYVC at checkout. Offer valid through May 27, 2024.

The new edition for grade 3 is upcoming fairly soon. I hope to release it in early June.

Someone asked if the new edition of grade 3 is more or less difficult than the current edition.

I think it is probably pretty similar as far as an overall difficulty level. Some upcoming changes are:

A more thorough review of mental math from 2nd grade in the first chapter. This is to help children who come from some other curriculum to MM.
The current chapter 1 is split into two chapters.
Two topics are dropped: Roman numerals and rounding 4-digit numbers (the latter is covered later).
More emphasis on writing a simple equation (number sentence) for word problems

Some topics are scaffolded better and covered over more lessons than before:

elapsed time
shapes
area and perimeter
all fraction topics

The better scaffolding can make those topics seem easier. 🙂

You can see the tables of contents for the A and B worktexts here:

https://www.mathmammoth.com/complete/samples/Math-Mammoth-3A-2024ed-Table-of-contents.pdf

https://www.mathmammoth.com/complete/samples/Math-Mammoth-3B-2024ed-Table-of-contents.pdf

If you're working with a class, to ensure that everyone has the same edition, please use the ISBN numbers.

Grade 3-A Worktext (2024ed)                    978-1-954358-65-2
Grade 3-B Worktext (2024ed)                    978-1-954358-66-9
Grade 3 Tests and Cumulative Reviews (2024ed)  978-1-954358-67-6
Grade 3 Answer Keys (2024ed)                   978-1-954358-68-3

Searching with these right now will not produce anything since the books are not published yet. But you can keep these for reference.

All the ISBN numbers are listed in an ISBN spreadsheet that is available on our printed books page.

The grade 3 ISBNs will also be listed on the grade 3 page.

Got this in a few days ago... (posted here with Melanie's permission)

Hello Ms. Miller, I just want to thank you for your work over the years. I first purchased Math Mammoth in the early 2000s when I homeschooled my high school children because I did not know what concepts to teach when. Now I have a grand daughter that needs help with long division and your digital tool popped up. After homeschooling my children I went back to school and became a math teacher. Your products made me feel comfortable teaching math. Thanks for encouraging me from a distance and for all that you have done to support parents for the past 20+ years! Melanie Harding

To me, this letter is quite inspiring... wow, I encouraged or helped someone to become a math teacher!

It's also interesting because that is my story, too. I wouldn't have become a math teacher had it not been for a certain math teacher, my 10th grade math teacher. He was very nice and inspiring as a teacher, BUT he also kept mentioning how some year, Finland will have a shortage of math teachers. That year I decided to become one (and not an elementary school teacher like had been my idea so far). For 11th and 12th grades I had a math teacher that was more "uninspiring" but I didn't change my mind, and went on to the local university to study math after finishing high school. 😃

2. Calendar activities online

Find a slew of online calendar activities here!

You can let your child or students practice ordering the months or weekdays, find the date that is a given number of days or weeks from the given date, tell the weekday of a specific date, and so on.

The activities suit best grades 1-3.😀

3. Request

Are you working in a school and using Math Mammoth?
Could you help me a bit?

I've gotten a request from the head of a small school (grades 3-5, 15-20 students per grade) where they'd like to talk with someone from a school that has experience using Math Mammoth.

If you fit that criteria, please let me know by replying to this email.

I'm also interested in feedback in general from teachers and schools concerning Math Mammoth, for the purposes of future improvements.

4. How would you solve 31 × 12?

How would you solve 31 × 12?

Here's a short reel comparing two children solving it, one from China, one from Japan.

There are many ways! Yet, I thought it's interesting neither one uses the standard algorithm.

I feel the standard algorithm does have its place. If these were more complicated numbers like 78 x 54, it's not that easy to use partial products (like the boy does). These numbers with small digits (3, 1, 2) were quite possibly chosen for the video's sake.

5. Just for fun!

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Feel free to forward this issue to a friend/colleague! Subscribe here.

Till next time,
Maria Miller