Learn & Do Science with Your Children: Newsletter May 19, 2015

Posted on May 19, 2015 by

MariaD — No Comments ↓ Tagged with: newsletter

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In this newsletter:

Become a citizen scientist and do real research with your children.
That feeling when you first hold a new book!

Learn and Do Research With Your Children

The Boston University Developing Minds Lab and NaturalMath would like to invite you to become a Citizen Scientist at home!

The goal of this project is to bring parents, educators, children, and scientists together to study how children develop math concepts and skills. We are exploring children’s early understanding of algebra before they have significant formal mathematics training in school. We need parents and guardians at home to help us study children’s math intuitions.

When you become a Citizen Scientist, you will do live research in your own home with your children, collecting valuable observations about your children’s responses and their reasoning behind their responses. The studies consist of fun, interactive games that you will play with your child.

Using our online guide, you will read about the background of the study and the study goals, then you’ll watch a few short videos that show you how to do the study. Finally, you’ll do fun experiments with your children and collect live data that we can use to further our understanding of children’s early mathematical reasoning. Preparing for the experiments takes just about an hour, and the studies take just about 30 minutes to complete with your child. Parents or guardians of children ages 4-9 can participate.

Citizen Scientists who have already participated found it educational, fun, and exciting. And kids really enjoy it! As a thank-you for participating, Citizen Scientists receive a booklet with more fun math activities to do at home.

Learn more and register at http://www.naturalmath.com/citizen-science-station/

P.S. Big thank you to our study’s beta testers. Everything from the reminder system to the training videos is now improved thanks to your feedback.

The Joy of Playing with Math

Sue VanHattum, the editor of Playing with Math, writes on her blog:

My book, Playing with Math: Stories from Math Circles, Homeschoolers, and Passionate Teachers, is delighting readers across the U.S. (and hopefully around the world). Here are a few photos of happy readers. Send me a photo of you with the book, and I’ll add it to my collection.

Meanwhile, a book crowdfunder who lives across the ocean from Sue writes at the Living Math forum:

Just wanted to give a shout out to Sue and team publicly on the forum for excellent work on the book, my husband and I really love it – even though we’ve only scratched the surface. And also for the great communication and promptness in delivering the book. We live in India and we received the book soon after we responded with our address. We were quite impressed!
Warmly,
from a really warm tropical part of southern India :)
Padmashree