Posted on Friday, September 4, 2015

An Insider’s Guide to Thinkster Math (formerly Tabtor)

2 years ago Thinkster Math contacted me on my Maths Insider email, asking if I’d like to review their new iPad based math program. After testing it with 2 of my kids and exploring it using my 20-years-of-math-teacher-experience, I wrote the blog post Is Thinkster Math a Real Alternative to Kumon?

After publishing the post, Thinkster Math, who are based in the US, offered me a position to work with the families from Europe, Asia and Australia who had signed up for the program, many after reading my review. Over the past 2 years I’ve had the pleasure of working with amazing families from around the world who are using the Thinkster Math program to guide their kids to math success.

Other programs and resources are definitely available and I’ve written about a whole heap of them here on Maths Insider, but in this post I’m going to offer an Insider’s guide to the Thinkster Math program and tell you how you can use even just the Thinkster Math 1 week free trial to kick start your child’s math learning.

How to get the best from Thinkster Math’s 1 week trial

Many families are attracted to Thinkster Math because of the chance to try the program without paying(tuition centres like Kumon don’t have free trials). Make sure you make full use of the Thinkster Math trial by following the tips below:

Use the Thinkster Math trial straight away

My big tip for Thinkster Math’s trial is to sign up when you have at least a few non hectic days. Your free 7 day trial will begin straight away once you’ve signed up and your child will have the chance to try a sample worksheet, take a diagnostic test, try some worksheets based on the questions they got wrong on the test and even speak to their instructor. Those families who get straight on with the Sample and Diagnostic test, worksheets and conference with the instructor will have a real insight into their child’s math learning gaps as well as into the Thinkster Math program and will be in a great position to decide whether Thinkster Math will work for their families.

Ask for the trial to be extended

Some families sign up and don’t get round to completing the Sample or Skills Assessment or they complete those but don’t get round to trying the worksheets or speaking to the instructor. In that case, it is possible to get your trial extended for a few more days by contacting the Thinkster Math support team.

Use the insights the Thinkster Math program gives you

Even if you decide to not subscribe to the Thinkster Math program, if your child has completed the Skills Assessment, you’ll be able to see exactly which math topics your child has weaknesses in through the progress report chart built into the Thinkster program (see below).

Inside the Thinkster Math instructor app

Thinkster Math instructors have an app, which we use to provide us with insights into each students math learning and to share our insights with students and their families.

As a Thinkster Math instructor, I can give written feedback and step by step solutions for each question, by either writing in the worked solution or providing corrections to the student’s working out. The picture below shows the instructors writing in red.

As a Thinkster Math instructor, I can see at a glance which topics each student is struggling with (those in red), which topics each student is confident with (those in green) and which topics each student understands, but is still making errors on (yellow topics).These insights help me to decide what work to assign to my students. Parents and students can also see the progress report on their Thinkster Math account.

As a Thinkster Math instructor, I grade and send feedback on each of my students worksheets. This is a screenshot from the Thinkster Math program. Students and parents can easily see the instructor’s feedback.

As a Thinkster Math instructor, I can see my students’ working out, how long they’ve spent writing, thinking and erasing. I can even “playback” their work. This shows me how the student has approached answering each question.

My favorite part of my work as a Thinkster Math instructor are one-on one coaching calls I have with my Thinkster Math students. During these calls we review how their work has been going and preview upcoming work. I also teach strategies for any tricky work they’ve met or are about to meet and we discuss and sort out any problems related to the math they have been working on at school.

The Thinkster Math Parent Insights app

This week Thinkster Math have released a new Parents Insights iPhone app to help parents easily keep track of their child’s Thinkster Math work and activity. The video below gives an overview of the Thinkster Math Parents Insights App which uses intelligent technology to provide further insights into your child’s learning:

I hope this post has given you an great insight into “behind the scenes” at Thinkster Math . For your 1 week trial and 10% off for 3 months, use the referral code mathinsider1 or sign up from the following link: Maths Insider Thinkster Math discount

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2015

Does Your Daughter Lack Math Confidence? She’s Not the Only One.

A recent study by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has highlighted the problem of girls’ lack of math confidence. From the report:

Girls “lack self-confidence” in their ability to solve mathematics and science problems and achieve worse results than they otherwise would, despite outperforming boys overall

Girls do worse at math and sciences than boys, even though they do better in other subjects. This gender gap occurs in the majority of countries who took part in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests, but the gap in the UK, the US and Western Europe was much more noticeable.

A spokeperson from the OECD criticized the teaching of math in the UK which he says was “simple math wrapped in complex words,”compared to Asian countries where complex math is taught earlier and from first principles.

The report goes on to say that this gender gap is not because girls aren’t as clever or able as boys, in fact they do better than boys in reading tests, but their poor performance is due to a lack of confidence in their math skills and their belief that they won’t need math for their future careers.

As the mother of a 15 year old girl, these results sadden me, but I know that looking at the make up of the advanced math groups in her school, the majority of the class are boys, with only 5 girls out of 20 in her class and only 6 girls out of 25 in my 14 year old son’s advanced math group.

The OECD also looked at data from parent questionnaires and found that parents were much more likely to expect their sons to work in careers that needed math than their daughters.

What can we parents of girls do to lift our daughters from the bottom of the math confidence pile?

Show them cool careers that need math

Photo: Mashable.com

Research from the Universities of Pittsburg and Michigan found that many women who have strong math ability, also have strong verbal ability and therefore have a wider choice of of career options. Make sure your daughter is aware that, if she chooses, she can use both her math and verbal abilities in many of math and science based careers.

Share cool math videos

Who doesn’t love a funny or inspiring video? Make a point of sharing some cool, well-made math related videos with your child. You won’t go wrong with Ted Ed math videos and there are some really cool math and science You Tube channels out there. And don’t forget math related podcasts

Keep up with the latest math education research

The Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests whose results formed the basis of the girls and math confidence study, take place every 3 years. In between test years, researchers worldwide dissect the the test data to produce findings which parents can use to support their own children’s learning. Quality news websites such as the Guardian, The New York Times and the BBC are good sources for finding out about the latest math education research. Of course, Maths Insider also highlights research based ideas to help you help your child with math.

Let them read math

Research (and personal experience from my 4 kids) has shown that girls love reading books more than boys do. We’ve managed to sneak a few math books onto our daughter’s bookshelf over the years. You can find some engaging math story books in the Maths Insider Amazon store in the side bar. Also check out my blog post Go Read Some Math.

Find out what your daughter really thinks about math

Kids, especially as they get older, are often experts at hiding their true feelings. After reading this post, you’re more likely to look out for signs which indicate the level of your daughter’s math confidence. A casual chat in the car, or at the dinner table will yield more insights. You should also check out my “How Confident is Your Child at Math?” quiz here on Maths Insider.

As a biased math fanatic, I’d love it if every child loved math, and as a mother of 4, I’d be content if my own children loved math all the time. In reality, that’s just not going to happen. However, as parents, we want our children to be confident in all their subjects at school, and especially in the core subjects of math and English. We also don’t want the fact that our child is female, to mean she has fewer future career options. The advice above will help raise the math confidence of your child, whether it be your son or daughter, but the research shows the problem is more acute for our girls.

Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2015

How Can I Help You Help Your Child With Math?

It’s been over 2 years since I blogged here on Maths Insider! So the first thing I’ll say is I’m sorry! I’ve still been connecting with Maths Insider readers through my Maths Insider Facebook page but have neglected those of you who have been coming over here for advice on helping your child with math.

So what has Maths Insider been up to for the past 2 years?

1) Working with Thinkster Math (formerly Tabtor)

For the past 2 years,I’ve been Thinkster Math‘s instructor for International students looking after families everywhere from the UK to Europe to Asia and lots and lots of Thinkster Math families in Australia and a few in New Zealand. Thinkster Math approached me after I reviewed the Thinkster Math program here on Maths Insider. As a Thinkster Math Instructor, I’ve been helping families guide their children to math success using Thinkster Math’s iPad based system.

2) Homeschooling!

The other thing I’ve been doing is I’ve started homeschooling one of my four kids. I’ve been homeschooling my 8 year old son for the past year and am pleased to announce that we’ve both survived our first year of homeschooling! The math has been straight forward thanks to Thinkster Math and another cool math resource that I’ll talk more about later, but finding out how to guide my child to homeschool success in English, History, Geography etc has put me in the position of being an anxious parent searching Google, blogs and Facebook pages to find that secret sauce. All this searching has made me realise that a blog such as Maths Insider is still a valuable resource which I need to keep adding to.

The Maths Insider legacy still continued

During my blogging hiatus:

Teachers and parents have still been downloading the 21 Seriously Cool Careers that Need Math resource to give kids math inspiration.

Families have read my eBook – The Ultimate Kumon Review and have been able to find out if the Kumon programme is right for their child.

I’ve also had people joining the 31 Days to Faster Times Tables membership site and using the worksheets, audio and video guides to get their kids over the Times Tables hurdle.

And I’m back!

Over the next month I’m going to give you a behind the scenes look at the Thinkster Math program, so you can see what tools I’ve been using there to help kids improve their math. I’ll also show you exactly how to use Thinkster Math’s 1 week free trial to identify your child’s math strengths and weaknesses.

I’ve got a blog post in my drafts box about Girls and Math Under-Confidence. It’s based on academic research and also on my daughter’s personal experience, as well as on my experience as an math educator for the past 20 years.

I’m bursting to write a review post about Life of Fred Math because it really is quite the most quirky, wonderful and inspirational series of math textbooks I’ve ever come across.

I’m also toying with the idea of writing about my experience as a Kumon franchisee. I get lots of queries from people who are interested in running a Kumon center, so an in-depth and honest post on the topic seems to be needed.

Over to you!

Apart from these ideas, I’d love to hear what questions you have about guiding your child to math success!

You can add your question here, in the comments, below this post or email me directly at caroline@mathsinsider.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Posted on Friday, April 4, 2014

How to Solve a Physics Problem (FUNNY!) plus Mental Math Tips

I saw this cool comic strip below, by the funny folks at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC), a few weeks ago on Facebook , and spent a good few minutes cry-laughing (is that a thing?) Even my daughter in the midst of wrangling with quadratic equations in preparation for a math test, joined in. You see, even for seasoned math teachers, math lovers and professional scientists and mathematicians, arithmetical errors are all too common when problem solving.

As part of my role as Instructor for International Students at Thinkster Math (formerly Tabtor), I was given 5 math worksheets at Grade 5 and 6 level to test and report back on any errors or inconsistencies before the worksheets were released onto the student app. Needless to say I made 1 or 2 (or 5) mistakes across the set of worksheets!

If you’re a parent of a child who’s struggling with arithmetic, you might not yet be able to see the funny side of SMBC’s satirical cartoon, but take heart that mental math mistakes happen to the best of us.

I’ve added some links below to some blog posts here on Maths Insider which will help polish your child’s mental math skills ready for the day when they need to solve that tricky physics problem!

Mental Maths 101

What Every Parent Needs to Know About the Multiplication Facts

10 Fun Parent-Tested Math Board Games

How do you help your child with Mental Math?

Posted on Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Start Celebrating Maths: 5 Fun Resources for Learning Maths

This is a guest post by Clare Evans

Maths. It’s one of those subjects your children either love or hate.

For some, getting their head around number patterns, learning their times tables, and mastering long division is just too much to bear. But maths has been considered ‘boring’ for far too long.

It’s such a valuable subject, that teaches your children skills for life. Skills they will need to employ almost every day in their adult life. So it’s time to start a revolution. It’s time we started celebrating maths and making it fun.

Here, are five fun resources you can use – either at school or in the home – to make learning maths a blast:

1. Apps

We’re witnessing a technology boom, and children of all ages know their way around an iPhone or iPad better than many adults. If this sounds like your kids, you should embrace their tech-savvy nature and make maths fun with an app or two.

There are plenty of apps for children of all ages and abilities, making this a great aid for many parents. A quick browse of the app store on your mobile or tablet will bring up a plethora of free and paid for apps, designed at teaching different skills.

If you’re not sure what you’re looking for though, this post from Maths Insider lists some of the best.

2. The Internet

If you don’t own a tablet but still want to make the most of these more modern methods, the World Wide Web is by far your biggest ally.

There are a whole host of websites and online games designed to make maths fun; many of which, your children won’t even see as learning. Again, do your research and find out the best ones for your child’s age and ability, but you won’t be short on options.

Mashable recently posted their pick of ‘5 Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Maths Online’. You can check that out here for some inspiration and places to start.

3. The TV

Believe it or not, your kids can get clued up on maths by watching the TV.

Children’s television has always had a strong focus on learning, but this has only increased in recent years. Now, your kids can watch some great programmes that are all geared towards making maths – and other subjects – fun and interesting.

There are also a number of dedicated revision services and programmes available via your television which can be a great aid for older children. The TV is a great maths teaching aid as it doesn’t really feel like learning, but you’d be surprised at what your children pick up on.

(Check out Maths Insider’s cool and funky You Tube maths recommendations for Kindergarten kids.)

4. Games

Some children learn better by ‘doing’, which is where these more tangible maths aids come in. Games like Times Table Snap, Primary Numbers Bingo and Fraction Towers are all great ways you and your children can play and learn together.

There is also a lot to be said for ‘playing shop’ with your children. Write a price list for things you can buy from their ‘shop’ and ask them to be shop keeper. Do your shopping and ask them to tally up the amount in their head. You can then get them to work out how much change you’re owned and what coins they could give you.

This is fun and something you can do for real if you take your children along when you do the weekly shop. These aids can be brought online or in local toy stores and are a must-have for parents looking to make learning maths more fun.

(Maths Insider shares some excellent parent tested maths board games here)

5. Books

Never underestimate the power – or fun – of a good workbook.

Some children will prefer this method of learning as it is similar to how they’re taught at school. You can get loads of work books aimed at different age groups online, and go through them with your little ones.

Choose ones with bright colours, loads of images and plenty of variety. If you can work through the more fun games and puzzles, you will be able to foster a love of maths. You should also buy puzzle books like Sudoku’s and other number puzzles for your children. They keep the brain active, and are a great way of learning new skills.

There are plenty of fun resourcess for learning maths that you can purchase for your children, and a whole host of ways you change your kids’ perception of the subject. Sure it can be hard at times, but it is a hugely important subject and one that can be fun when you look at it a new way.

Clare Evans is writing on behalf of Core Assets, the largest private agency for fostering in the UK, and recent winner of the Global Diversity Award 2013.

Posted on Friday, September 20, 2013

Math Machine – A Beautiful Bilingual iPad Math App

Helen Littlewood is a busy mum of 3 who, along with her team at Gingerbread Kids, has developed a cool math iPad app called Math Machine. The original Math Machine app came in English and Maori and the new Math Machine with Spanish app launched this week helps kids aged 5-11 years old, learn math in English and Spanish. The Math Machine app covers several important concepts from the Common Core for Math. While they’re playing, your kids are gradually mastering: • sequential counting up to 20, 40, 100 and 1,000, • instant recall of times tables, • the relationship between doubles and halves and how to estimate answers, • different representations of numbers: how a fraction relates to a decimal number and percentage. You’re able to choose which language to play the Math Machine in, with both the audio and written instructions presented in your language of choice. The illustrations on Math Machine are gorgeous and add a rich dimension to this easy to play app. Every level has the same format, numbers fall out of the cloud and need to be dragged into place . Math Machine with Spanish is FREE this week (20-27 September) on app store. The original Math Machine costs $4.19. Math Machine with Spanish comes with both the English and Spanish options built in. Grab this beautifully illustrated bargain of a math app for your kids!

Posted on Thursday, September 5, 2013

Back to School Math Goodies Giveaway!

My 4 kids went back to school this week.

I’m glad that we’re back into some sort of a routine, but am wondering how I’m going to survive yet another 9+ months of getting up super early.

Whether you’re homeschooling or sending your kids to school, it’s likely that you’re reading the Maths Insider blog to find out how to put some spice in your child’s relationship with math!

Well as a Back to School gift to you, I’ve got together once again, with Bon Crowder, fellow math blogger extraordinaire, from Math is Not a Four Letter Word to bring you some math inspiration freebies.

Once you’ve signed up (oh! and btw we won’t share your email with anyone else!) You’ll get 9 days of fresh math ideas including:

The Maths Insider Interviews – steal ideas from real life maths teachers

The Four Facts of Math Video – If you don’t put these 4 facts into action you risk another year of maths hating

If You Give a Man Some Hands – the coolest little hand drawn cartoon ebook to share maths ideas with your child

The Super Math Giveaway Preschool and High School Packs – the coolest apps, You Tube channels and podcast for teens and apps, hands-on activities and toys and games for little ones

and much more…..

Click through to the Super Math Giveaway website to find out more and to start receiving your free maths gifts!

www.supermathgiveaway.com

p.s. Don’t forget to like and share this on Facebook and Tweet out this rockin’ offer!

p.p.s. If you’re already signed to Super Math Giveaway from 2 years ago, you’ll get the additional content sent to you. No need to sign up again!

Posted on Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Questimate! – Quite Possibly the Coolest Math iPad App! [Giveaway]

I came across Questimate! by Motion Math a few weeks back when I carrying out some research for my post iPad apps for preschoolers.

You see Jacob Klein and his team at Motion Math have produced some of the coolest IOS apps from the cute Motion Math:Hungry Guppy for little kids to the zoomingly fab Motion Math:Zoom for kids young and old.

Questimate! and Questimate Pro are the latest apps from Motion Math to use their zoom technology to show just how cool math really can be!

Questimate! is an estimation game where kids make their own questions:

How many giraffes would be as tall as the Statue of Liberty?
How fast is the world’s fastest train?
How many jelly beans would it take to fill up a soccer ball?
In what year was the cell phone invented?

and lots more questions based around the categories of Amazing Animals, Need for Speed, History of Awesome, and GeoOdyssey.

Estimation skills are a really important part of kids math development and are a requirement in the Common Core Standard. Questimate makes estimation fun!

This cool math app is aimed at kids aged 9 and upwards, but you’ll see from the video below of my 6 and 12 year old boys playing Questimate (with some help from their 14 year old sister and their 4 year old brother) that the app has broad appeal.

You can also see from the banter in the video that my kids loved Questimate!

Questimate! is the free version, which you can see my kids playing. There’s also Questimate! – Pro which gives access to the full range of cool questimation questions!

Motion Math have given me 2 promo codes for Questimate! – Pro for the iPad worth $7.99 each to give away to Maths Insider readers.

For a chance to win:

Like the Maths Insider FaceBook page
Download the FREE Questimate! by Motion Math app
Take a photo or screenshot of one of the cool questions that your child makes on Questimate
Upload the pic onto FB and Tag @Maths Insider with a message (e.g Playing Questimate iPad app, recommended by @Maths Insider)

I’ll pick 2 random winners from all entries submitted by midnight GMT Sunday 8th September 2013.

Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Help your Bookworm Child Start Loving Mathematics

This is a guest post by Davis Miller:

As far as math is concerned, most kids in the U.S. are not making the grade. Former math teacher at Stanford, Jo Boaler, published What’s Math Got to Do with It?: How Parents and Teachers Can Help Children Learn to Love Their Least Favorite Subject in which she offers great advice for parents struggling to help their children love math. She outlines practical solutions meant to change perspectives including study strategies and tips to make even the keenest book lover appreciate math. Boaler believes that kids could be interested in mathematical ideas as long as they’re fascinating and eye-catching. Games, easy puzzles, and patterns are great ways of making bookworm kids fond of math.

Math fun with M&Ms

Who doesn’t love M&Ms? They’re colorful, fun to play with and of course, delicious. Kids will love to sort them by color, count them, and eat them. It’s equally important for parents to ask their kids questions like: “How many green M&Ms do you think you have?” “How many M&Ms are in total?” Appealing to their senses and tricking them into getting out of their comfort zone is an excellent way of helping them love math. A lot of parents think that there’s no way to make their bookworm children appreciate mathematics. As far as kids are concerned, remember this: there’s always a way to catch their attention, you just have to find it.

Every day chores may lead to math opportunities

Most every day chores involve math skills. Therefore, as a loving parent you should find the best ways to make your kids love it. Shopping, cooking, planning trips, cleaning, they’re all related in one way or another to mathematics. For example, you should start by including daily activities that include numbers, but try not to scare your kids away with demanding tasks. Make a pie and ask for help from your kid. Let him measure ingredients and the experience won’t just be educative, it will also be entertaining. Your toddler may be a book person, but still, who can say No to pie?

Math and literature are like yin and yang

While that may be true, we all know that opposites attract. Did you ever think of recommending your child a book with math concepts? It doesn’t have to be something obvious, and as long as the text is perfectly combined with the math, your kid will love it. Parents must constantly find ways to draw their children’s attention. Check out the math related story books in the Go Read Some Math post. You could organize weekly ‘book clubs’ and spend more time together. Appeal to his logical side and try to see if you can make him more curious about math. Early childhood brings about an array of hobbies, so your kid will want to be doctor today, a pilot tomorrow, and who knows, maybe he will end up an engineer 20 years from now.

Teach your kids to play chess

Rather simple at first, chess is a really complex strategy game. It requires great analytical skills, so you can’t know if your kids have them or not unless you teach them. Take things slow and make them understand the rules first. Try as much as you can to do it in a fun way, and try not to put pressure on your toddlers. To make them feel good about themselves, let them win every once in a while. It’s really important for parents to be supportive as far as learning math is concerned, and board games are a fun, engaging way to make such an exact science seem more laidback.

Math is everywhere

We cannot help but admit that math is everywhere. As a parent, you need to take advantage of that if you want to make your bookworm kid love numbers more than his beloved Juggle Book by Kipling. Numbers are constantly present in our daily lives, and to make things interesting for kids you need to come up with facts. Watch morning weathercasts together and calculate simple equations, use fractions for fruit divisions, and if you just bought a lottery ticket, allow your kid to fill in the numbers.

As parents we cannot force our kids into liking math; what we can do is make use of smart techniques that will make them like it. You may not realize it, but fun learning methods could awaken your child’s interest in math. Without proper encouragement you won’t be able to convince a bookworm child to give up reading.

Author Bio: Davis Miller is a fun loving guy who loves to play with children. He is a writer and his articles are mainly focused on school-going children. Apart from that, he also works for a site http://www.yorknotes.com/ which is an ultimate guide to Exam success.

Posted on Sunday, June 9, 2013

Mathematis – iPhone App Giveaway

Mathematis is a universal educational app for iPhone that helps speed up kids addition, subtraction, multiplication and division??.

With a bright aliens and space theme, set on the faraway planet of Mathematis, your child has to save the peaceful Mathematians from the bombs of their evil nemeses, the Innumerators, by solving math problems. For every math question solved correctly, a Mathematian’s spaceship escapes their war-torn planet; get a question wrong, and the ship is grounded.

The game is suitable for kids aged 4+ and has customized settings so that your child can play at their correct level whatever their age. For young kids, set a low limit on the answer range to make sure they’re getting easy question. Increase the limit as your child’s skills improve.

I really like the game’s bright graphics and the built in “Do Over” mode which let’s kids have another go at questions they skipped or got wrong. There’s also a parent page where you can track your child’s progress.

Mathematis is a great app for practising arithmetic skills. It doesn’t teach kids how to work out the answers, so is best used as an app to reinforce and improve your child’s mental math recall. The audio on the game is also really loud, and you’ll need to go into your phone’s settings to make it quieter, which isn’t so great for us parents with sensitive ears, but the developer assures me he’ll make the sound adjustable in the next update!

Maths Insider is giving away 3 free app store codes for Mathematis. To grab your free coupon code for Mathematis, email me at caroline@mathsinsider.com with the subject line “I want Mathematis”

~~I’ll pick 3 people at random after 9am GMT Wednesday 12th June 2013.~~

Competition now closed. Congratulations to Ada, Chloe and Maryam who won a free app store code each for Mathematis!

Maths Tips From Maths Insider

Quick tips and practical advice to help you guide your child to maths success

Category Archives: Primary and Elementary Resources