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Can anyone recommend any fun math activities for elementary school level?<br />
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I have a first grader who is homeschooled but just did her first standardized test. She tested at the 9th grade level in reading comprehension / English / vocab (she is a bookworm from super early age) but was 85th percentile math for 1st graders. I think the discrepancy is just pure time spent on one over the other and wondering how I can make math a little more fun for her.
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</blockquote>I think the best thing you can do for a child with math is to make it apply to real problems. If I have two Barbie dolls and Ken wants to take them for a ride, how many people would there be?<br />
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Counting money is always a lot of fun, and can be done tangibly, which is far more entertaining than telling them to do it.<br />
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I've heard the states also have the sales tax alongside the product, which could be a great way to teach percentages to stretch them.<br />
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Telling time can be done throughout the day as small tests, and can be enjoyable with no pressure attached.<br />
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This looked like an excellent site that I found:<br />
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First Grade Math Worksheets | K5 Learning
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<div class="contentRow-snippet js-unfurl-desc">Free 1st grade math worksheets, organized by topic. Number charts, addition, subtraction, telling time, comparing & ordering numbers, counting money, measurement, geometry, word problems and more. No login required.</div>
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The worksheet seems to have themes of applying maths to real-world items to make it more tangible.<br />
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<b>Note: I misread the post and originally posted for a 15-year-old to learn physics and maths. Regardless, I refuse to delete it as I think some may find it helpful.</b><br />
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I did chemistry for three years at university. Here are the big takeaways on how to survive and enjoy mathematics.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 22px">Apply it to something.</span></b><br />
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Whenever I would learn something new within math, I'd be given the concept & told the formula triangle to memorise. What was barely taught (and needed to be) was <b>how it applies to real problems.</b><br />
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I joked about saying that "trigonometry is useless" until I had to figure out the height of a four-story building, only using a pitch angle and a base measurement.<br />
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Here is an example:<br />
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First, teach the basics of trigonometry (Pythagoras, sohcahtoa), then give questions that apply to a problem, like: <i>"I'm an ancient Egyptian and I'd like to build a pyramid. I have an angle of X and a base to centre length of Y. How tall will my pyramid be?"</i> Something silly like that. Of course, start them off small, but look to apply it to real things.<br />
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Another one: Teach them the idea of compound interest (alongside iterative formulas), then give them a $10 bill. Firstly, state to them that you will loan this money to Mom and Dad, and as a reward for lending to both of them, you'll give them an X interest rate. If you do this for Y number of years, what will you receive from lending your money to us?<br />
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Another one: Teach them about <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z96g3j6#zmbqwnb" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">moments</a>, then get two spanners (one double the length of the other) and a firm piece of wood that is bolted tightly. You can physically show them that the spanner, doubled the length, will take half of the required force. Bike gears are a great example of visual moments, too.<br />
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An extra tip is to apply it to something they are interested in. Most math is stale until you find an application that can engage you.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 22px">Understand The Variables</span></b><br />
It's a common trope that algebra is the worst. I thought the same until I saw the beauty of how an equation fits together. The biggest tip is understanding the variables from their units, not words.<br />
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Here's an example: the relationship of <i>mass (g), density (g/cm3), and volume (cm3).<br />
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<a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/attachments/1748026138545-webp.66425/"
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Most will look at this and try to learn it by learning the words. That is super difficult, making solving problems with many variables hard. The better way to visualise it is to understand the <b>International System of Units</b> (SI) notation (such as g for grams, w for watts, etc. and how they can be divided or multiplied together to create new ways of representing values.<br />
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Once you understand SI units, it gets easier to pick out variables from problems, which makes the equation easier to solve. You pick out the units from the problem and then plug them into each part of the equation.<br />
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<a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/attachments/1748026414342-webp.66426/"
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Another way to look at it is that the left side will equal the right side after all is done, so if you do some cancellation;<br />
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You'll arrive on both sides, equaling each other. Me proving g = g seems silly, but that<b> shows that all variables relate to each other because they equal one another,</b> which is foundational to algebra and equational mathematics. That's how you can get single SI units (m, kg, A, K, mol) to combine then and make more complicated representations of values (eg pressure, kg/m*s2)<br />
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Once you understand that, rearranging is easy. If you want density, you know that the SI units for it are g/cm3, which means <b>grams (g) divided by volume (cm3). </b>That is, after all, the units for density.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 22px">A Recommended Series</span></b><br />
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This series is an absolute godsend for how physics applies to the real world, and it changed much of my attitude towards how I viewed mathematics. Very enjoyable to watch.<br />
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</div><i><span style="font-size: 10px"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrNGWcdZ6GY&list=PLy_tXNON0VPLLOhmFzzrnZbI3foookKUf" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrNGWcdZ6GY&list=PLy_tXNON0VPLLOhmFzzrnZbI3foookKUf</a></span></i><br /></div>
