Month: March 2015

Fun Learning Subtraction in Palo Alto

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Subtraction Action by Loreen Leedy is the best way to teach your child in Palo Alto subtraction! The book breaks down the steps for your child so that subtraction becomes simple and easy to understand. With fantastic and colorful images, your child will be drawn into the book with different types of creative subtraction problems. Real life examples make the problems practical and easy for kids to relate to. This book will teach your child the value of subtraction in their daily life. Answers are in the back of the book ,so your child can solve the subtraction problems and check their answers right away. If your child is struggling with subtraction or needs additional practice, then Loreen Leedy’s Subtraction Action is the best book for you! I recommend this book to every child in the Palo Alto and Menlo Park area. A solid foundation of subtraction is absolutely crucial for math success in the great Palo Alto schools, so don’t wait and head over to your local book store to pick up a copy of Subtraction Action to read with your child.

early math help palo alto

Image from amazon.com

For more problems about math books and math learning help, check out Mathnasium of Palo Alto – Menlo Park website.

Gelato Math in Palo Alto

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A brand-new gelato cafe called Gelataio opened last August in Palo Alto on the corner of Alma and Lytton Avenue. It is the perfect place to go with your child before or after their lesson at Palo Alto – Menlo Park’s Mathnasium. Many people think ice cream and gelato is the same thing, but they actually differ a lot. Ice cream is made from more cream than milk whereas gelato is made from more milk than cream. This makes the texture of gelato and ice cream very different from one another – gelato is much more dense than ice cream. That being said, since gelato does not have as much cream, it has less fat than ice cream. If you’re in the mood for something fruity and lighter than gelato, Gelataio in Palo Alto serves sorbets as well.

gelato palo alto math

Photo by Alessio Damato via Wikimedia

 

Gelataio in Palo Alto

Gelataio has a range of different flavors including chocolate, baccio, hazelnut, pistachio, vanilla, and much more. Its sorbet flavors include but are not limited to strawberry, mango, raspberry, and green apple. While you are at Gelataio in Palo Alto, quiz your child on his or her math skills. Here are some fun problems to ask your child.

  1. Assume a small serving of gelato in a cone costs $4.25. If both you and your child order the small serving, and you pay with a 20 dollar bill, how much money will you get back.
  2. Gelataio is 0.7 miles away from Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium. If you drive to Gelataio after your child’s lesson at an average rate of 35 miles per hour, how long will it take you to get to the gelato shop?
  3. It takes a server 15 seconds to scoop gelato. If a worker scoops non stop for 4 hours, how many scoops did he scoop?
  5. For more problems and information about math tutoring check out Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium’s website.

For more information about Gelataio check out their website.

Area and Size in Palo Alto

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Bigger, Better, Best by Stuart Murphy is the book for you if you want your child in Palo Alto to learn how to calculate area! Siblings are always in a competition to see who has the best room. Jilly, Jeff, and Jenny are no different! Jilly, Jeff, and Jenny are always in a disagreement to see who has the bigger, better, and best item. Who truly has the biggest room? They don’t know…until one day, they calculate the area of their rooms. Using paper to measure, they calculate the area of their windows and rooms. They take bets to see whose room is bigger. One is longer and narrower and the other room is shorter and wider. The children can’t truly tell which room is bigger until they measure the length and width of the room and find the area. Despite their guessing that one of the rooms is bigger than the others, the rooms are actually the same exact area, meaning they are the same size! Gee, were they disappointed! Bigger, Better, Best is a wonderful book for any child in the Palo Alto and Menlo Park area who is learning about area. The book will teach them how to calculate area and the importance of area in determining size.

geometry math book palo alto

Image from harpercollinschildrens.com

Check out Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium’s website for more book recommendations and geometry tutoring help!

March Madness in Palo Alto and Menlo Park

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To Basketball and Math Fans of Palo Alto, Menlo Park

What’s the Math Probability of a Perfect Bracket?

Palo Alto and Menlo Park students are about to be engulfed by March Madness, one of the most exciting times of the year for basketball fans! If you’re filling in your brackets now, keep in mind that the odds are nearly entirely against you! Read this article to find out how math (probability) can predict your chances at a perfect bracket.

Of course, as a Palo Alto or Menlo Park math student, you can easily find the probability yourself, by multiplying the odds of each event. According to Duke University math professor, Jonathan Mattingly, the probability of filling out a perfect bracket is exactly 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. In fact, you’re more likely to become President of the United States than to fill out a perfect bracket. For more information, read the original article at http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/03/duke-math-professor-says-odds-of-a-perfect-bracket-are-one-in-2-4-trillion.

Palo Alto Menlo Park math tutor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball

Of course, the moral is that you can use math in nearly any context, even in basketball! Don’t let the mathematical probability deter you from creating your own personal bracket! You can actually use math to your advantage, researching the records of past March Madness results to help you predict the likely chances this season! Palo Alto and Menlo Park students can learn to become more excited about math by finding specific applications in their immediate world! For more fun ways to learn about math, visit Mathnasium’s website.

 

Pi Math in Palo Alto

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My favorite math-related day of the year is in two days! Pi day is celebrated every year on March 14 in Palo Alto and elsewhere. Now, for those kids who do not know what pi is, I will quickly tell you. Pi is not the same as the delicious dessert pie. Pi, often written as the Greek letter ?, is the ratio between a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. Pi can be approximated as 22/7, but it actually goes on forever: it starts 3.14159265358979… Since 3, 1, and 4 are pi’s first digits, we celebrate pi day on March 14 (3/14).

Pi math tutoring Palo Alto

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

Math Problems for Palo Alto Kids Using Pi

 

  1. To help your Palo Alto child understand pi better, have them approximate pi themselves. Here are the steps to approximate pi.
    Step 1: Find a circular object, like a plate. Then, measure the circumference (the edge of the plate) by wrapping a string around it and measuring the amount of string you used.
    Step 2: Measure the diameter of the circular object
    Step 3: Make a ratio of the circumference of the plate to it’s diameter. Plug that into a calculator, and your child should get a number very close to 3.14!
  2. You walk around a circular track that has a radius of 18 feet. What is the circumference of the track? (Remember, circumference is found using the equation 2 * pi * radius)
  3. You want to find the volume of a cup. If your favorite cup has a radius of 2 inches and is 5 inches tall, how much cubic inches of water can fill the cup? (Remember, volume for a cylinder is pi * radius^2 * height)

A Fun Pi Tradition

A way to make your child LOVE pi day is by making a yummy pie with them. Before letting them taste the delicious pie, make them calculate the circumference and area of the pie using pi! You can also take your child to a restaurant in Palo Alto, like the Prolific Oven on Waverly Street, that serves pies and have them calculate the circumference and area of their pies using pi as well!

For more problems and information about math in and book recommendations, check out Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium’s website.

Bedtime Math in San Carlos

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San Carlos Bedtime Math Stories

The only thing I like more than math is bedtime stories at home in San Carlos! Now, I can have it all with Bedtime Math by Laura Overdeck. Featuring math word problems in fun categories like exploding foods, wild pets, extreme vehicles, sports you shouldn’t try at home, this book will appeal to kids in San Carlos with various interests! Each page features three different kinds of problems based off of a particular topic. There are three questions per page- one for wee ones, one for little ones, and one for big kids. This allows the book to be relevant for San Carlos children of most ages. In the back of the book, there are answers for each question with work showing how the answer can be obtained. The Bedtime Math series by Laura Overdeck is by far my favorite math book series!

Regardless of if your child is a math wiz or struggles with math, this book will be a fun way for them to practice math and love learning! I know your child will enjoy the book just as much as I do, so head on over to the San Carlos library or Redwood City’s Barnes and Noble book store. The math in this book will help your child succeed in math in San Carlos schools! And if you’re looking for other book recommendations and math help, go to http://www.mathnasium.com/paloalto-menlopark to learn more!

San Carlos math help

Image from amazon.com

Probability Math in Menlo Park

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Probability is one of the most useful things to learn since it is seen every where in the real world. In Menlo Park, probability is first seen in 3rd grade. After that, the child in Menlo Park will have to use probability in every math class after that. Thus, mastering probability is very important.

Probability Basics in Menlo Park

Probability is found using this simple equation: number of ways it can happen/total outcome. For example, if you want to know what the probability is of flipping tails on a coin, you would count the number of ways getting tails can happen (in this case it is 1 time). The total outcome is 2 because you can either flip heads or tails. Thus, the probability of flipping tails on a coin is 1/2 or 50%.

Menlo Park Math Problems

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

 

Here are some problems to ask your child so that they will master their probability skills.

  1. There are 5 people in your family (including yourself) and each person wants to go to a different restaurant in Menlo Park. To choose a restaurant fairly, everyone writes the name of the restaurant on a slip of paper and puts in a hat, and one restaurant is picked out. What is the probability your restaurant will be chosen?
  2. If you and your sister both wrote down the same restaurant, what is the probability your restaurant will be chosen?
  3. You go to your favorite ice cream parlor in Menlo Park. This parlor has 25 flavors: 8 of the flavors are chocolate related, 9 are fruity, and the other 8 have neither chocolate nor fruit. If you choose an ice cream flavor at random, what is the probability that the chosen flavor is one of the chocolate flavors? What is the probability it is a fruity flavor? What is the probability it is neither a chocolate nor fruity flavor?

As you can see, probability is everywhere. There are so many fun questions you can ask your child that relate to probability.

For more problems and book recommendations, check out Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium’s website.