Exploratorium Museum Visit for Menlo Park Students

While it may be hard to explore the outdoors in the winter, the perfect places for Menlo Park students to go is the Exploratorium in San Francisco! It is a great day trip to take with the family during the weekend. The Exploratorium allows everyone to interact with exhibits that deal with science, art and the human perspective. The mission statement of this museum is to change the way the world learns. The Exploratorium is only a train ride away from Menlo Park!

While at the museum, ask your Menlo Park children these math questions to get them even more engaged!

1) If you want to spend an equal amount of time in each of the six galleries, and you have 4 hours to spend with your friends from Menlo Park at the museum, how many minutes should you spend at each gallery?

2) There are 58 people in the Human Behavior gallery; how much do all of there tickets cost together if each ticket is $29?

3) If there’s an average of 1,100,000 visits to the museum annuallly, what is the average number of people per month?

We hope you have fun at the Exploratorium, Menlo Park! For many fun ways to learn math in the Stanford area, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

SeaWorld Math Problems for Stanford

Now that we’re deep in the middle of winter, many of us are dreaming about summer vacation… And during summer vacation, what’s more fun for our Stanford students than going to SeaWorld? While we’re daydreaming about SeaWorld, here are some themed math problems for you to work on!

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1. You’re taking a family road trip from Stanford to San Diego (SeaWorld)! If it takes exactly 7 hours to drive there, if the distance between Stanford and San Diego is 478 miles, and if you didn’t take breaks while driving, what was your average speed?

2. At SeaWorld, walruses eat 20 lbs of fish each day. If 1 lb of fish costs $3, how much does it cost to feed 30 walruses?

3. While visiting SeaWorld, you decide to take a side trip to Disneyland in Anaheim. If you spend 2 days at SeaWorld and 2 days at Disneyland, how much do you spend on tickets? Assume that SeaWorld tickets are $60/day, and that Disneyland tickets are $130/day.

4. While watching the Shamu show, you decide to sit in the splash zone with your other Stanford friends. During the show, Shamu splashes 60 gallons of water out of the pool! How many pints of water is that?

We hope that you enjoyed these SeaWorld-themed problems! For many fun ways to learn math in the Stanford area, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

 

Palo Alto Valentine’s Day Math

Valentine’s Day is in less than a week, Palo Alto! This day began as the celebration of an early Christian saint, but now it is a celebration of love for family and friends.

The holiday is filled with flowers, and of course chocolate! One of the favorite candies is the candy hearts with little messages. Many classrooms in Palo Alto with have celebrations for the day, and these usually include feasts of desserts.

While you are enjoying all the little sweet treats, try these Valentine’s Day related math problems!

1) If 1/4 of a candy heart box contains 23 candy hearts, how many hearts should be in the whole box?

2) Billy, from Palo Alto, eats 3 chocolates in 2 mins. If he keeps eating at this rate, how many chocolates will he have eaten in 10 minutes?

3) Ann is picking flowers, in a field in Palo Alto, to give to her mother as a Valentine’s Day present. If she wants a ratio of 3 sunflowers to 4 roses. How many roses does she need to get if she already has 6 sunflowers?

We hope you enjoy this Valentine’s Day with your loved ones and have fun doing these math problems together, Palo Alto!

Chinese New Year Problems for Menlo Park

Get excited! Chinese New Year is just a week away! February 8 will mark the beginning of the Year of the Monkey. Many of our students in Menlo Park and the surrounding area celebrate Chinese New Year, so here are some math problems to mark the occasion.

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1. Mei, a student in Menlo Park, has received many red envelopes from her relatives for Chinese New Year’s! She receives $5 from her mother, $10 from her father, $15 from her grandfather, $13.13 from her aunt, and $8.88 from her great grandmother. What was the average amount of money she received in each red envelope?

2. Menlo Park is hosting a Chinese New Year’s Parade! If the parade starts at 5:00 and ends at 5:36, and the participants march 2 miles, what was the average speed of the walkers?

3. Alexander has decided to give out candy to his entire class at his Menlo Park elementary school. If there are 23 students in his class (including him), and he wants to give each classmate 3 pieces of candy, how much money will he spend on candy? (Assume candy is $5 for a pack of 30).

4. Lana bought some firecrackers for Chinese New Year’s! She takes them into her Menlo Park backyard to enjoy with friends. Assuming that when they’re set, the firecrackers travel 50 miles per hour. If the firecracker was in the air for 0.3 seconds before landing, how far did it travel?

We hope you enjoyed these themed math practice problems. For more fun ways to learn/practice math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park. Xing nian kuai le (Happy New Year)!

Menlo Park – Rainy Day Math

California has been in a drought for the past few years, but we are finally getting the kind of rain we need! It has been raining in Menlo Park almost every day, and has given us the perfect puddles to jump in. Our umbrellas are out and our rainboots are on as we set out to brave the seemingly endless rain.

While we do need the rain, it can be hard to stay inside all the time without anything to do. Well, Menlo Park, we have the perfect indoor activity to do when the rain has gotten you down… math problems!

1) If the rain is falling at 10 meters/sec, how long would it take a single rain drop to fall 365 ft?

2) A pool is 3/4 full. If the rain fills up 1/8 of the pool that is empty, how full is the pool after the rain?

3) When Alice goes outside her house in Menlo Park, she sees a puddle that is in a perfect circle. If she measures the radius of the puddle to be 2 ft, how big is the cirfumfrence of the circle? The area?

We hope you enjoy doing these math problems while keeping warm inside in Menlo Park, but don’t forget to go out and play in the rain every once in a while!

Explaining the New SAT for Palo Alto students

In Palo Alto and around the rest of the country, high schoolers dread taking the SAT/ACT, the standardized test required by colleges for undergraduate admissions. A while ago, The College Board announced that they were changing the format of the current SAT starting with the March administration. In this blog post, we’ll inform you, Palo Alto students and parents, of the changes to come on these tests.

The College Board has stated that they want the new SAT to be more reflective of the learning that students experience in classrooms. In that sense, the SAT will become more like its rival, the ACT. Traditionally, Palo Alto students have thought of the SAT as the “aptitude” test, testing logic and reasoning, and the ACT as the “achievement” test, testing knowledge acquired in school.

So what does that mean for the anxious Palo Alto high schooler?

The new SAT will do away with the dreaded vocabulary section, meaning students will no longer need to drill themselves with flashcards. In the new SAT, more emphasis will be placed on the reading comprehension skills encouraged by Common Core standards. Students will be asked to analyze the literary style of works that should be more familiar to them (speeches by MLK, Gandhi, etc). In the math section, Palo Alto students may either be pleased or upset to hear that there will be a no-calculator section. The College Board has stated that they would like to test more applicable skills in math, rather than include questions that merely encourage the use of equations.

Whether you’re planning on taking the SAT next month or next year, we wish you the best of luck!

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Mathnasium Themed Math Problems Menlo Park

Hello Menlo Park students! We’re about to start off the new year, and we hope you’re as excited about 2016 as we are! Why not start the year with a big boost in your math skills? Here are some math problems to help kick off the new year, themed around the Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park. If you’re a student here in our Menlo Park site, you’ll definitely recognize the context of some of these math problems.

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1. Cindy comes to the Menlo Park Mathnasium on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for one hour each time. How many hours does she spend at Mathnasium each year?

2. 2/9 of all Menlo Park students come to Mathnasium! (made up statistic). If there are 150 students registered at Mathnasium, how many total students are there in Menlo Park?

3. Kevin gets 5/16 on his first test, 8/16 on his second test, 14/16 on his third test, and 16/16 on his last test. What was his average score (in percent)?

4. It takes 12 minutes to travel from the Palo Alto – Menlo Park Mathnasium to the Los Altos one, if one drives at 20 miles per hour. How far are the two Mathnasiums from each other?

5. It takes 15 minutes for a Menlo Park Mathnasium staff writer to finish one blog post. If a Mathnasium staff writer works for 4 hours doing nothing but writing blog posts, how many can (s)he write? (how meta was that?)

We hope that you enjoyed doing these Mathnasium-themed math problems dedicated especially to our Menlo Park students. Remember to study hard in the new year, and to continue developing your math skills! Being good at math helps you with your critical thinking and analysis skills. If you want to really supplement the math you learn at school, come to Mathnasium! For more fun ways to learn and practice math, please visit the Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park.

Christmas Math for Portola Valley Students

Students in Portola Valley schools are getting ready for Christmas (this Friday)! Our Mathnasium staff have written some Christmas-themed math problems to celebrate the holiday! If you need a break from the holidays and feel like doing math, here are some problems just for you! We hope that Portola Valley students take advantage of the holiday break to get ahead on math.

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1. Santa Claus is driving his sleigh from Bakersfield to Portola Valley, in a hurry to deliver his presents. If his sleigh goes at 130 miles per hour, and the distance between the two cities is approximately 200 miles, how long will it take him to arrive?

2. Each family gives Santa Claus approximately 5 cookies. There are about 30 families in your neighborhood. How many cookies will Santa Claus receive from your neighborhood?

3. For Christmas vacation, you are going to visit your grandparents in Salt Lake City! If you leave Portola Valley at 7:23 am in the morning, and arrive in Salt Lake City at 6:51 pm, how many hours and minutes did you travel? (Remember, there’s a one hour time difference between Portola Valley and Salt Lake City! Subtract one horu)

4. You receive 3 gifts from your grandma, 2 gifts from your grandpa, 1 gift from your younger brother, 5 gifts from your aunt, 3 gifts from your father, 9 gifts from your mother, and 2 gifts from your best friend, how many total gifts did you receive?

5. There’s a holiday sale at your local Portola Valley department store! Winter jackets usually cost $59.99, but are on sale for 45% off during the Christmas holidays! How much do the jackets cost while on sale?

We hope you enjoyed these Christmas-themed math problems, Portola Valley math students! For more fun ways to learn and practice math, visit The Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park. Start off your new year with a boost in your math skills!

Crepes in Palo Alto

One of the most delicious spreads to put on food is Nutella… and Crepevine in Palo Alto has a whole menu with this wonderful creation spread on thin pancakes. Crepes are a good food for breakfast, lunch or dinner! One of the most popular crepes at Crepevine is the Stanford Crepe (named after Stanford University in Palo Alto), filled with nutella, strawberries, and bananas and topped with whipped cream and vanilla bean ice cream!

Crepes were invented in France, but have become beloved all over the world! There are also savory crepes, which are just as yummy, filled with cheese and vegetables. Crepevine is the perfect place to take your children to brunch after a session at Mathnasium!

While eating at Crepevine, feel free to ask your children these questions to incoorperate math into the meal!

1) If a sweet crepe costs $6.25 and a savory crepe costs $8.50, how much do 5 sweet crepes and 3 savory crepes cost?

2) The wait for a table at Crepevine on a busy Sunday morning is around 28 minutes. If it is 10:03am right now, what time will your family be seated?

3) The perfect temperature to cook crepes is at 81 degrees Farenheit. The stove heats up at 1 degree/2.5 minutes. If the stove is 74 degrees right now, how long will it take till the stove is at the proper temperature to cook the crepe?

Enjoy the meal, Palo Alto! For more fun ways to learn math, visit the Mathnasium of Palo Alto – Menlo Park.

Fall in Menlo Park

We are well into fall, here in Menlo Park! The leaves have changed their colors and have begun to decorate our streets. One of the most fun things to do when there are a lot of crunchy, colorful leaves in your backyard is to rake them all up (with the help of you kids, of course) and jump in them!

Jumping in the leaves is the perfect activity on a cool Sunday morning; not only is it a blast, but the yard will also be cleaned.

While having fun in the leaves with your kids, feel free to ask them these questions to incorperate math into their day.

1) If there are 100 leaves in one pound, and you count 425 leaves, approximately how many pounds of leaves do you have?

2) In a pile, if there is a ratio of 2 red leaves to 3 yellow leaves to 1 orange leaves, what is the probability you pick a red leaf?

3) It takes 1 person 2 hours to rake all the leaves in the backyard in Menlo Park. If there are 4 people raking the leaves, how long with it take?

Have fun in fall, Menlo Park! For more fun ways to learn math, visit the Mathnasium of Palo Alto – Menlo Park.