Math Enrichment

What does "Math Enrichment" mean anyway? At The House of Math it means learning math just for the fun of it. That's right I said it: fun.

Learning is fun. Learning math can also be fun when you understand what's going on and aren't frustrated because you can't get what they did or how they did it. My favorite students by far are math enrichment students.

We basically play with blocks and learn math concepts. The goal is a well rounded student. If they happen to like science or engineering they can pursue that, if they rather be poets or journalists it's because they are interested in that NOT because they washed out of math classes.

Here is a link to the blog post where you will see a toddler doing math that a lot of older kids might have a hard time with...but he's having fun. Here is the screencast:

People are always impressed when my students factor polynomials. He doesn't even know it's supposed to be hard.

Here he is with his brother playing with higher powers of x. Some people find it hard to believe that kids can do this kind of math so you will find full motion video of actual kids doing actual math at the ripe old ages of four and five.

Here are some links to older students doing much of the same thing...and by older I mean sixth graders.

This post is called Sixth Grade Math Enrichment. and covers a students first 4 lessons or so playing with base ten blocks and learning math. Really all he is doing is counting even when we move up to the fourth power algebra or depending on who you are talking to 4th degree algebra.

If you follow those links you will see how that sketch allowed a sixth grader to completely factor that 4th degree polynomial. We didn't just get there in five minutes, it took several classes and we did all kinds of other math too, from addends to multiplication. For younger students the higher powers are used to actually teach addends and multiplication.

In the same way you wouldn't expect every student to play piano at Carnegie Hall, you don't expect all math enrichment students to become rocket scientists or physicists. You are simply enriching your child. Music makes for a more well rounded student and has also proven to increase math skills. Math leads to critical thinking, it's not just computation. I have written more than one article about it, and if you've read this website you know it's a recurring theme.

Here are a couple of math students who are also in 6th grade, if you would like to see More math Enrichment with 6th Graders, Click that link. When you get to the blog you may just want to search "Math Enrichment". Put that in the search box and you will find quite a few posts containing pictures, text, screencasts and video. I don't think I need to duplicate them all here, but as time goes by I will add more links and brief descriptions because I now have quite a few vids up on YouTube and hundreds of blog posts. With that much info it's easy to get lost...and after all that I still haven't got enough stuff up. Need more on fractions and story problems, lots more algebra, pre-calc etc...all of which can be made accessible to even very young children.

I have so much stuff on Math enrichment now it might be best to just put "Crewton Ramone Math Enrichment" into your favorite search engine...


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"We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way." ~John Holt

"Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners." ~John Holt

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." ~George Santayana