The DreamBox Math Learning Blog

It probably goes without saying that the people at DreamBox like to give educational gifts to enrich a child’s mind! Education is the gift that keeps on giving, long after the season ends. Dreambox Learning’s holiday gift-giving guide makes shopping for educational toys a no-brainer! We consulted parents, children, and educators to find the top educational toys that make learning fun. And rest assured, not only are these toys educational, they’re fun to play with too. We’ll review a few educational toys a week, so check back soon for the next award-winning toy.

No, this is not a commercial of any kind (trying to convince you that if you buy 1 you will get 2)! This is just a mathematical proof that 2=1. I remember that my math teacher in high school first showed me this. I was quite impressed! A few days ago I randomly encountered the proof and recalled it. Here it is:

X = Y
X*X = Y*X ; Multiply by X
X*X-Y*Y = Y*X-Y*Y ; Subtract Y*Y from both sides
(X-Y)*(X+Y) = Y*(X-Y) ; Some standard conversions
X+Y = Y ; Cancel out (X-Y)
2*X = X ; Use that X = Y
2 = 1 ; Divide both sides by X

Are you convinced now?

This video clip illustrates to humorous effect how important place value is.

It’s pretty easy to see how a child without the understanding of place value might accidentally create a math solution like Ma and Pa Kettle.

Ma & Pa Kettle Math: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7106559846794044495&hl=en

We’re about to send our November parent newsletter, featuring an article on ‘math anxiety’. In the course of writing the article we came across several sites that offer resources to help parents understand and deal with the doubt, fear, and loss of confidence kids can have if they’ve have bad experiences with math. Fortunately, you can overcome math anxiety and set yourself (or your child) up to succeed in math by having good experience learning mathematics. As parent who had to struggle to build a positive math attitude, I thought some of you might find these useful.

In the seemingly infinite blogosphere it can be a huge investment of time to figure out which education blogs are most worth reading. Luckily, DreamBox has done the work for you, reading many education blogs on the internet to tell you about some of the very best.
When we created this blog round-up, we looked for [...]

I just got back from a great three day “Dust or Magic” conference run by Warren Buckleitner for people who create children’s technology products. (The title is a quote from a 17th century philosopsher named Matsuo Basho: “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.”) Guided by Warren, about 65 of us viewed products, learned from each other, and discussed best practices to create “magic” products and learning games that use technology to improve children’s lives.

And yes, we ALL agreed that children should spend most of their time playing with other children and adults, using real things, and going outside! And we also agreed that many — perhaps the majority? — of technology toys and online media are “dust”. But, and this is an important but, many products use technology in ways that open up new opportunities for children, and let them learn and explore and play in wonderful new ways. These are the products that are “magic”!

One of our favorite things to do as we prepare to release a new beta is to invite parents and their child(ren) to come to our offices for early usability testing; mostly because it gives us a chance to observe and interact on many levels. While most conversations usually center on the product experience, over the last month, a surprising number of parents asked how we came up with the name DreamBox Learning. So here it is.

As we get closer to launching DreamBox Learning’s first product, an online adventure game that teaches serious math, and we see more and more kids in beta testing, we’re realizing how many advantages there are to online learning games. In the classroom children get the very real benefit of interacting with their teacher and with other students. Online learning has distinct advantages too. That’s because online teaching can be tailored to individual students in a number of important ways.

Benefits:

1. Online learning is self-paced
2. Sophisticated online education products can offer self-selected learning.
3. Online learning games encourage engagement.
4. Online education can support a range of learning styles.
5. Advanced online tools can provide real-time assessment
6. With an internet connection, there are no geographical barriers
7. Learning happens when it’s most convenient.
8. Online learning enhances computer and Internet proficiency.

Understanding the charts and graphs in the media these days can be tricky, to say the least. Statistics can be displayed in numerous ways to lead, or mislead, a person’s thinking about a topic. Case in point: a turn in the stock market by 4 points is very different than a turn by 4%. Learning to analyze data is an important skill that children need to learn so they can make decisions based on accurate information in the future. Analyzing, collecting, and organizing data is something even very small children can begin to understand. It is also such a great way for kids to make connections with math in the real world.

Grandma and Grandpa were coming for a visit, so I revisited my mini-library of favorite classroom books to read with my young son. He was very excited about the visit, especially after reading The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. He was particularly interested in where Grandma and Grandpa would sleep. Together we identified all of the beds in the house. Then we counted the number of people that would be here, including our 2 guests. Finally, we matched each person to a bed. This one-to-one correspondence practice is the foundation for basic counting.