Homeschool Math Blog

I have used Math Stars problem solving sets with my girls for several years, and they have always greatly enjoyed them. Math Stars include various puzzles and challenging math problems. They  come as PDF files (free and ready to download & use) in sets for grades 1-8. They're great to use for summer math  or for some fun problem solving at any time. I tend to use the problems from one grade level below the grade the student is in. One reason I like these so much is the variety of the problems - geometrical puzzles, number puzzles, logical thinking, etc. --  all of it is included! Another reason is that the sets go all the way from grade 1 upward. There exist actually lots of problem solving resources but not so many for the early grades. Each set per grade has 10 two-page "newsletters", and each "newsletter" has 8-10 problems. The number of stars in each problem marks the level of difficulty. Answers are included. Math Stars Problem Solving ...

Are you perhaps doing any car trips this summer? Do you realize what a great opportunity it is to teach some real-life math to your children? They need to learn how to calculate the cost of a trip, based on the miles driven, the gas mileage of the car, and the price of gasoline. So today I want to highlight something sent to me by a fellow homeschooling mom, visitor to my site. She uses math a lot within real-life situations, and recently made a geography-math worksheet for her daughter about calculating the length and cost of a trip their grandparents were doing. She allowed me to share that worksheet WITH YOU... so here it is (MS Word 7) and here (Word 6). Right-click to save. See also a travel distance calculator to help you figure out distances. I quote: " It's funny, but even with all the resources we currently have on hand, I find that we spend more time on real-life math (such as calculating tip when we eat out). In fact, I just created a "worksheet" (not ...

Summer is here, so this time I want to feature two articles from my main site, touching on topics that might be close to heart for many at this time: Keeping Your Math Skills Sharp Over The Summer and How to Help a Student Who is Behind in Math? I hope these can be of help. Feel free to comment here at the blog.