I didn't mean to imply that learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide whole numbers, decimals, fractions, percents, numbers with exponents, and integers has to be such a boring task. You can avoid that type of feeling.
One way:
Make connections between the concepts. Don't make math appear as fairly separate compartments of "fractions" and "decimals" and "percents" and "geometry".
I sometimes wonder how students feel when every year (on 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade) they have a chapter on fractions, a chapter on decimals, a chapter on whole numbers, a chapter on geometry... Almost the same thing over and over.
We need to make sure they can see how these things connect.
An example:
A jogging track is 3.5 km long. If you jog 2/5 of it, how far was that? How many percent of the track is that?
|--------------------------------------------|
0 3.5 km
|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
0 1
|--------------------------------------------|
0 100%
Can your student solve it? What do you think, when are they ready for this sort of problem?
Tags: math, mathematics
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