Sep08
A few months ago we talked in this post about the differences between the Dutch Rekenrek abacus versus the traditional Japanese Soroban and the analogy with hands. Today we will make some comments on the advantages of the Rekenrek compared to the Soroban to encourage varied strategies in children when doing the same calculation. One […]
Continue reading »Sep07
Several scientifically-based studies, by Walter Mischel, Martin Seligman, Angela Duckworth, and others, confirm that cognitive ability (measured, for example, by IQ) is not a reliable indicator of success and achievement. How do we define success and achievement? We look at academic indicators (like grades and test scores) or social factors (a career, stable family life, […]
Continue reading »Sep06
In today’s post, we will look at the origins of the months in a year. Throughout history, the act of telling time has been a necessity for human beings. Wanting to have more control over time, mankind took the approach of a chronological division of semantic time. We presume that an astronomical year lasts 365 days, […]
Continue reading »Sep05
In today’s post, we will take a look at open and closed polygonal figures. But first, we need to know what polygons are: polygons are figures made up of several straight segments joined together. Polygonal figures can be classified as open or closed. A polygonal figure is open when the segments do not all connect […]
Continue reading »Sep02
In this post, we are going to learn the divisibility guidelines for numbers 7 and 13. Divisibility Guidelines for 7 In order to know if a number is divisible by 7, we take the number without the units digit and subtract two times the units digit from this number. Then use the resulting number and […]
Continue reading »Sep01
Did you know that we can save a lot of time by multiplying? Every day we are faced with problems we can solve much faster with multiplication. For example: If we want to know how many people attended the football match… …we can count them one by one, but it would take us a lot of time, and it […]
Continue reading »Aug31
Tables are perfect for organizing all kinds of information and for looking at results with more clarity. Using pictures makes it easier to comprehend tables faster and this is why pictograms help us interpret data more easily. At Smartick, we start children with pictograms at a young age so that they can learn how to […]
Continue reading »Aug30
A Texas teacher swearing off of homework for her students has gone viral and it seems to have incited more than the usual flurry of back-to-school discussions about whether homework helps or hinders kids. If you haven’t read the note from Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher working not far from Dallas-Fort Worth, she says that […]
Continue reading »Aug29
Welcome back to the Smartick blog! Do you know what equivalent fractions are? After reading this post with examples of equivalent fractions, you’ll be an expert. Equivalent fractions are fractions that represent the same amount, even though they may appear to be different. Let’s look at this example: Do you think these fractions represent the […]
Continue reading »Aug26
We’ve already seen some of the main geometric shapes in earlier posts. In this post, we’re going to look more in-depth at the circle. A circle is a geometrical shape that is made by drawing a curve that always has the same distance from the point that we refer to as the center. In just […]
Continue reading »Aug25
In this post, we are going to learn how to subtract. First things first, we are going to learn exactly what subtraction is. Subtraction is taking away a certain amount from another amount that we already have. Some examples of how to subtract: If we have 5 purple balls in a box, and we take […]
Continue reading »Aug24
It was the 80’s and many of my friends either had a crush on Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years or wanted to be Winnie Cooper. Today there’s a much wider variety of TV shows. TV is just better and certainly more plentiful than when we were kids. But our children will likely never know what […]
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