Fall in Atherton

Fall–or autumn, depending on what you want to call it–is here in Atherton! The leaves turning beautiful colors, slightly cooler weather, the start of the school year, Halloween, and Thanksgiving are just a few of the reasons that fall is beloved by many. Particularly in Atherton, where the weather gets especially mild and nice during this season, many people love to get out and do things during fall. Now that we are well into the season, here are some fun, educational facts about this period of the year!

Math Tutor / Tutoring - Atherton, CA - Mathnasium

1. The term “fall” first came to be used in 16th century England due to the Middle English phrases “fall of the leaf” and “fall of the year.”

2. Instead of “autumn,” people in New England used to call this season “backend.”

3. In the Southern Hemisphere, Easter takes place during fall!

4. The beautiful aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, tends to be visible during this time of year. This is because geomagnetic storms, which produce them, are about twice as likely to occur during the fall as a result of the colder weather.

5. The first day of autumn is the autumnal equinox. During this day, in Atherton and around the world, the number of hours of darkness exactly equals the number of hours of daylight.

We at Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park hope that you have a fun-filled fall! For more fun ways to learn math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

 

Music Math Fun for Atherton

With September already here, our Atherton students are finding their rhythm back in school! This week, our staff at the Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park have come up with some music-themed math problems. Whether it’s finding new artists and songs to listen to, or going to a concert with your friends, music is a great way to kick back and relax. Here are three fun, music-related math word problems for our Atherton students to do this week!


1. Brendan wants to buy five of his favorite songs on iTunes. Each song costs 99 cents, and his mom gave him $4.50. Does Brendan have enough money to buy the songs he wants?

2. Julia and her eight friends are going to an Atherton summer music festival together. Julia’s family owns 2 cars, each of which can seat 5 people. Will everyone be able to get a ride to the summer music festival?

3. This summer, Martin and his band want to record in their local Atherton studio. Each hour in the studio costs $100, and they want to book 3 hours. How much will that cost in total?

Hope these summer music-related word problems were fun to figure out! We hope you have an exciting, music-filled summer! For more fun ways to learn math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

 

Summer Sailing Math

A fun thing to do over the summer is to go out to the bay in SF and go sailing! While the summer sun beats down on you, the brisk wind cools you off. You can sail under the Golden Gate Bridge and get a new perspective of San Francisco from the boat! For your first few days of summer, here are some sailing-themed math problems for you to solve!

1) If the summer wind is 5mph East, how fast do you have to go if you want to sail West at 30mph?

2) You start sailing at 10:30am on a nice summer afternoon, and you want to finish by 2:30pm. If the path you are sailing is 3 miles, how fast do you have to sail to be done in time?

3) The sail of your boat is 10 meters tall, so that it can catch the summer wind, and the Golden Gate Bridge is 227 meters above the water. How much distance is between the top of your sail to the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge?

For more fun ways to learn math, visit the Mathnasium of Palo Alto – Menlo Park. Don’t forget to come to Mathnasium to brush up on your math so that you don’t get summer brain drain! We have summer problems that are bound to be fun.

On Being A Second Semester Senior Before the Summer

The writer of this blog post is a current second semester senior at a local Palo Alto high school (not telling which one!) He’s definitely excited to graduate high school in 2 months, travel for the summer, and leave Palo Alto for college in the East Coast! While he’s excited and can’t wait for new chapters in his life, he’s definitely bittersweet about leaving Palo Alto, the town he grew up in. Here are his goals to make the most out of second semester senior in Palo Alto before summer begins!

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring

1) Hang out with his friends more often this semester and over the summer. Often during high school, especially in competitive, overachieving Palo Alto, students are caught up in schoolwork. After a stressful semester applying to college, and all of junior year, the writer is excited to catch up with friends and go on more adventures! Specifically, he’s planning to take more roadtrips up to San Francisco, have more board game nights, see more shows, go to more summer concerts, etc

2) Keep up with academic obligations before the summer begins! While the pressure has definitely loosened over second semester, he still needs to try in his Palo Alto school! His future college takes AP credit for Calculus, Physics, and Economics, meaning he needs to study for those tests! However, for this #SSS, it’s fine for him to take a few mental health days, and be less stressed with all those tests and homework assignments…

3) Say goodbye to all his favorite spots in Palo Alto this summer! This means going to all his favorite restaurants, hiking spots, and bookstores in the city before leaving over the summer! He also needs to say goodbye to his favorite students at the Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park, where he’s worked since sophomore year…

Summer in San Francisco

With all the free time that you’re going to have this summer, you should go on an adventure in San Francisco! All our students come from the Peninsula/South Bay Area, meaning that San Francisco is just a short, 30-40 minute drive away! During the summer, San Francisco is known for its cool weather, making it an ideal place to escape the summer heat! Below, we’ve listed some ideas for activities you could do in the city!

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring - Mathnasium

1) Go jogging in Golden Gate Park! Take advantage of the cool summer weather to exercise in arguably most beautiful park on the West Coast! Once you’re in the neighborhood, you can also explore De Anza Art Museum and the California Academy of Sciences!

2) Watch the sunset on Ocean Beach in the Sunset District! This beach faces the Pacific Ocean, and is located on the western border of the city! This beach usually isn’t very busy, making it an ideal place to watch those perfect summer sunsets!

3) Go explore Mission! The Mission District is located near the center of the city, and is known for its beautiful public art, vibrant atmosphere, and amazing Latin American food. Grab a burrito at a taqueria, enjoy the murals, and duck into any of the bookstores in the area!

4) If you’re in Mission, you might as well visit Castro as well! Summer is an especially optimal time to visit this gay-friendly neighborhood, especially since San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade happens in June! Throughout history, the Castro has been considered one of the world’s most diverse and open-minded neighborhoods!

We hope that this blog post inspired you to travel up to San Francisco this summer! For more ideas to spend this coming summer, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto/Menlo Park.

Beat The Summer Heat

School is almost out and that means that Summer break is right around the corner. Breathe deep and relax. You can do it, just a couple more tests and you can relax from the normal school schedule. Freedom is a few weeks away.

Now while Summer often mean trips to museums, parks, beaches and other places Summer fun it also means Summer Brain Drain.

Summer Brain Drain is the learning lost during the summer months. During the 3 months of summer break, most students lose approximately 2 months of grade level equivalency with mathematics computation skills.

While some schools offer reading and practice math packets home, its fairly common that most kids run out of things to do. Very often many parents struggle to find enough activities for their children to do and keep them occupied.

While Summer Brain Drain can be a nasty it can be prevented. That lost knowledge can be preserved by practicing and sharpening your skills for an hour per day or even an hour every other day. That leaves you with over 160 hours to have fun, sleep, travel and destress from the chaos that comes with the school year.

Luckily Mathnasium of Palo Alto/Menlo Park keeps its doors open and the AC on during the summer months offering quality tutoring. Our program is perfect for keeping those freshly learned skills sharp and gives students the opportunity they need to take on that next year strong and easy.

So come on in this Summer to help prevent Summer brain drain and spend some time with Mathnasium of Palo Alto/ Menlo Park.

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring

Summer Ice Cream Math Problems

With summer coming up so soon, students in Palo Alto/Menlo Park are already looking forward to long, lazy days free of schoolwork. To indulge in these summer fantasies, we at Mathnasium have been publishing summer themed math problems! One thing that sets summer apart from the other seasons is that it’s always warm enough outside to eat ice cream! With that in mind, here are some ice cream themed math problems.

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring - Mathnasium

1) At Millie’s Ice Cream Shop, customers can buy a triple-special during the summer. A triple-special consists of 3 of the following flavors: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mango, mint chocolate chip, and green tea (where flavors can be repeated). How many possible combinations are there for the summer triple-special?

2) For every dollar that a customer spends on ice cream over the summer, 11 cents in tips are paid (on average, made up statistic). How much would customers need to spend on ice cream for there to be $100 in tips?

3) During your summer job at Long’s Ice Cream Shop, you scoop out ice cream with a spherical scooper. If that diameter of the scooper is 2.5 inches, what’s the volume of ice cream that it can scoop up? (Imagine that the ice cream that can be scooped out is perfectly spherical in shape).

4) During the summer, sales rise 52%, compared with spring sales. If Melissa’s Ice Cream Parlour served 9,321 customers over the spring season, how many customers did they serve over the summer?

We hope you enjoyed these ice-cream themed problems, to prepare you for the summer! For more fun ways to learn math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

Summer Travel Math Problems

In Palo Alto and Menlo Park, many families decide to go abroad during summer vacation! Traveling during the summer opens students up to new cultures and experiences, so we highly recommend it! Since summer is coming up in just a couple months, here are a few math problems to get you looking forward to the summer!

Summer Math Tutor Tutoring

1. A family of four buys plane tickets to London for the summer. If economy class tickets cost $1200 each, and business class tickets cost $2000, how much more expensive are business class tickets? (express as a percentage)

2. You’re in Japan for the summer! While at a restaurant in Tokyo, you mentally calculate the bill in your head (all that practice at Mathnasium is coming in useful!). You order 2 servings of shrimp sashimi ($3 each), 1 serving of unagi rolls ($5) and one bowl of udon soup ($6). If tax is 10%, how much does the meal cost?

3. You’re bored at the airport, waiting for your flight to Rio de Janeiro, and you’re planning activities to do on the plane. If the flight is around 11 hours, how many movies can you watch? Assume that each movie you watch is about 3 hours.

4. In Mumbai, the average temperature over the summer is 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Convert it to Celcius! To convert temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit to Celcius, subtract 32 and divide by 1.8.

We hope you enjoyed these math problems! Regardless of whether you travel or not this summer, we hope you spend lots of time with your friends and family!

For more fun ways to learn math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park!

Things To Do This Summer

Palo Alto and Menlo Park schools are well into second semester, with summer just over the horizon. It’s never too early to start planning for the summer! Although the summer is inarguably a time to relax and spend with friends and family, it’s always a good idea to get ahead academically during this period of no-school!

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring

Here are some Mathnasium tips for you to have fun this summer!

1. Go on a road trip with your friends and family! Drive to Los Angeles, Portland, or if you’re feeling adventurous, a city on the East Coast! While you’re driving, you’ll invariably bond with the other people in your car. Make sure to enjoy the famous landmarks and the diverse landscapes that the United States offers. And of course, don’t forget to play the license plate game! See how many states you can spot!

2. Read some books! Go to your local library or bookstore, and find books that relate with things that you’re genuinely interested in. Since this reading is strictly for leisure, and not for school, you have the power to choose your own reading material! Over the summer, try to read lots of books in different genres. My personal favorite is “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo!

3. Go to summer camp! There’s nothing more American than sitting around a campfire with your buddies, unwinding after a long day of hiking and swimming! Although many of us think of nature camps, there are also camps for many different activities and interests! Think about programming camp or debate camp!

4. Spend some time at Mathnasium! We’ll have plenty of fun math activities and events planned for you this summer! By spending some time at Mathnasium, you’ll be well-prepared for the coming academic year!

Have fun this summer!

Bucket List for the Summer (College Style)

The writer of this blog post (who will rename anonymous) is graduating high school in June of this year! He/she is planning to go off to college in the fall, meaning that the summer of 2016 will be the final transition between high school and college!

Summer Math Tutor / Tutoring

The summer before college is supposed to be one of self-discovery and adventure! With that in mind, here’s my bucket list for the summer…

1) Travel! I have relatives in Paris (France), Vancouver (Canada), and Melbourne (Australia). I’d love to visit one of these places this summer, live with them for some time, and explore their respective cities! For this coming summer, I’m currently leaning more towards Australia (since I’ve never visited) and France (since I want to practice my French).

2) Continue practicing my foreign languages! Foreign languages are a huge hobby of mine, and I’m planning to be a comparative literature major in college! Just for fun, and maybe to study a bit for the college language placement tests, I’m planning to practice the languages I speak this summer. Specifically, I want to review and improve my Hindi and Spanish (two languages I’m planning to study in college), Chinese (my language of heritage), and French (a language I started learning for fun this year). Without the obligations of schoolwork, I’ll definitely have a lot more free time to work on languages this summer!

3) Read! There are so many good books I haven’t read, and this summer seems like a perfect time to start them! Specifically, I want to finish Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and read more works by Virginia Woolf and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I also want to read some more contemporary novels. I can definitely imagine myself reading at the beach this summer!

4) Work more! I’ll definitely spend more time at Mathnasium, tutoring kids and helping out at the center! I’d like to take advantage off the summer to save up some money for college!

The activities I listed above are among those listed on my bucket list for the summer! What do you want to accomplish this summer?

For more fun ways to learn math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park!