Student Guide To Math Education

Do you like math? Lots of kids don’t, and the most com­mon rea­son for that is that math can be hard to under­stand. Giv­en the right tools and direc­tion, though, any­one can do well in math. Math isn’t hard; math is just different.

The arith­metic, geom­e­try, and frac­tions that you learn from kinder­garten to sixth grade form the foun­da­tion for all oth­er math­e­mat­i­cal study. Under­stand­ing these top­ics is essen­tial to under­stand­ing the ones cov­ered in mid­dle and high school and being able to go on to earn a col­lege (degree).

Arith­metic deals with num­bers and their prop­er­ties. You can work with num­bers in one of four main ways: addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and divi­sion. Addi­tion puts num­bers togeth­er to make big­ger num­bers; sub­trac­tion is remov­ing an amount from anoth­er amount. If you have two apples and find one more, you now how have 2 apples + 1 apple, or 3 apples. If you then give the apple you found to a friend, you have 3 apples — 1 apple, or 2 apples.

Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and divi­sion are a lit­tle more com­plex. You might think of mul­ti­pli­ca­tion as an advanced ver­sion of addi­tion. Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion is about adding a num­ber a cer­tain amount of times. If you have 3 groups that each have 4 books, you have 4 books + 4 books + 4 books, or 12 books. In mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, you would say that you have 3 x 4 books. In this exam­ple, you add 4 three times.

Divi­sion teach­es you how to split an amount into small­er amounts. Con­sid­er the divi­sion prob­lem 10 ÷ 5. This ques­tion is ask­ing how many groups of 5 you can split 10 into. Imag­ine that you have 10 cook­ies, and you need to divide them so that you and four of your friends all get an equal amount. How many cook­ies do you give each per­son so that you each have the same amount of cook­ies? You want to know how to divide 10 cook­ies among 5 people.

Anoth­er impor­tant con­cept in ele­men­tary math, frac­tions, relates to divi­sion. A frac­tion is part of a num­ber. Imag­ine that you’re split­ting up 1 piz­za to share with friends. The bot­tom num­ber in a frac­tion, called the denom­i­na­tor, is how many pieces you’re split­ting the piz­za into. The top num­ber in a frac­tion, called the numer­a­tor, is the num­ber of pieces you have out of the whole amount of pieces. For instance, if you have 1 piz­za, and you cut it into 6 slices, each piece is 1/6 of a pizza.

In geom­e­try, you learn about the dif­fer­ent kinds of shapes and how to mea­sure them. When you study two-dimen­sion­al shapes, you can learn about how to add up their perime­ter, the dis­tance around the out­side of the shape, or their area, the size of the space on the inside of the shape. Geom­e­try also includes mea­sure­ments of angles inside of shapes.

If you’re hav­ing trou­ble with arith­metic, geom­e­try, or frac­tions, don’t wor­ry! These can be hard things to fig­ure out for a lot of stu­dents, but there are lots of work­sheets, videos, and games online that can help you work on your math skills and make learn­ing math more fun.

Addi­tion and Subtraction

• Sin­gle-Dig­it Addition
• Adding and Sub­tract­ing Num­bers Using the Num­ber Line
• Sub­trac­tion Grids Game
• Addi­tion Mania Game
• How Is Addi­tion Like Subtraction?
• Make Your Own Math Fact Worksheets
• Minus Mania Game

Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and Division

• Math Moun­tain Long Divi­sion Game
• Pirate Math: Mul­ti­ply­ing Num­bers End­ing in Zeroes
• Quick Flash Cards for Division
• Step-by-Step Guide for Long Division
• Times Table Chart

Geom­e­try

• Angles and Par­al­lel Lines
• Find­ing the Perime­ter of Reg­u­lar Figures
• Explor­ing Sur­face Area, Vol­ume, and Nets
• Mon­ster Man­sion Shape Match
• Perime­ter, Area, and Vol­ume Formulas

Frac­tions

• Adding Frac­tions
• Divid­ing Fractions
• Frac­tion Poker
• Math Home­work Help for Fractions
• Mixed Num­ber to Improp­er Frac­tion Calculator
• Piz­za Frac­tions Game
• Rela­tion­ship Between Divi­sion and Fractions

Resource Sites

• GCF Learn­Free Tutorials
• Help­ing With Math Worksheets
• iPrac­tice­Math Worksheets
• IXL Math Games
• Khan Acad­e­my Video Lessons
• MashUp Math Video Lessons
• Shep­pard Soft­ware Games

Relat­ed:

The Com­plete Col­lege Study Guide

The Essen­tial Guide to Online Bach­e­lors Degrees

Online Stu­dent Study Skills Guide

From a Dis­tance: Your Com­pre­hen­sive Guide to Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs