Math tutor’s tips for helping kids sharpen their math skills this summer

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is *** good day to stay inside in the air conditioning, right? And maybe help the kiddos brush up on some of their math skills. Well one local tutor helps students year round thankfully and she has some tips and some resources for parents this morning. I’d like to welcome our first live guest now Jessica Eaton, she’s the founder of the mindful mentor Jessica. Good morning, thank you for being here. Morning. Thank you for having me. So are there any online programs that parents can utilize this summer to help their kids with math? Yeah, there’s two that I usually end up recommending to parents who reach out to me looking for help with things like that. The first one that I like the best is I Excel. Um It’s *** program that I’ve used in my classroom when I was *** public school teacher for years. And it um it’s just able to like personalize the practice for students because they take kind of *** diagnostic exam to show what they’ve already mastered and what they need more practice with. And then it recommends certain topics based on how they did on that. And so it’s just personalized practice to practice the things that they need the most help on. Um And then it also is really good at giving parents an idea of ​​like, ok this is what my student really knows, this is what he needs more practice on. Um And then um it can also help fill in gaps to like help get them ready for the next year, especially over the summer if there were things that they didn’t quite fully get from the previous school year. Um I Excel can help them fill those gaps in to be prepared for the next school year. And so I Have *** free trial available for that because it does, it is *** paid program, I think it’s like $10 *** month. Um and so I have *** free trial for seven days if any parents want to try that out. Um But then there’s also another, there’s *** free website that I also recommend in its Khan Academy. I know *** lot of students use that one on their own to like study for tests and everything. And so that’s another good one for over the summer because it is free, it offers like video lessons and you can pick which topic. So Khan Academy is *** a little better if you kind of know where your gaps are and you know what you want to focus on. Then the student can just say like, oh I need more practice on fractions. I’m going to go watch the videos on fractions and do those practice problems or um because like I Excel can tell them what they need help with, whereas Khan Academy, if they already kind of know what they need help with, then that one would be *** a little bit better for those students. Well it’s really helpful once you do identify the areas where your student may be struggling, but with some of those kids, we know that math is just not the most enjoyable topic out there. Are there any websites that have games that make it just *** a little bit more fun and interactive. So it doesn’t exactly feel like learning over the summer. Right? Yeah, definitely. Trying to make it, um, like gamify it when you can help *** a lot. I’ve noticed that with students and um, there’s *** few websites that I recommend to parents for games that would help with math to. Um, one of them is Prodigy Math, another one is adapted mind. Um, and then Brain Pop. Those are three websites that kind of make it more fun for students. Like you said, it feels like you’re just playing *** game and you happen to be learning math at the same time. And so I think that helps *** a lot. But so those are all online games, like if you wanted them to be able to play them by themselves. But there’s also just like physical games that students can play, that you can play with them all together as *** family, which could kind of make it fun over the summer too. And you can just go on amazon and search for mouth things and there’s *** ton of them. But Two of my favorite ones are the 24 game and *** card game called Boom. So they’re both card games that you can play and those two specifically kind of practice more basic math, like adding subtracting. Multiplying dividing. So that would probably be for younger students. But there are games for all different ages on amazon. If you wanted to be able to play those games with your students over the summer. And Jessica is this help for kind of all year long enough, we’re focusing on summer time right now. But if students students need extra help during the year, would you recommend these resources as well? Yeah, these can all be used throughout the year. So like I excel is *** monthly subscription. So if you wanted it just for the summer you could you could cancel it when school starts or you can keep it as *** supplement for the summer. And Khan academy, I know when I was teaching in the classroom, *** lot of students would use that as like extra help to study before *** test or things. And of course these games are good throughout the year. Um But I also I offered some classes throughout the summer and throughout the school year I teach homeschool math classes right now, but over the summer um public school students are obviously welcome to join us as well. Um And I also offer private tutoring, so if anyone does need help throughout the school year and kind of wants more like one on one help with things like that. Then I offer math tutoring for that too, Jessica. Thank you so much, you can get in touch with Jessica at the website that’s on your screen right now. Mindful Mentor dot com and take note. Mindful is spelled with two L’s. Thanks so much for your time Jessica.

Triad math tutor’s tips for helping kids sharpen their math skills this summer

Updated: 10:35 AM EDT Jun 14, 2022