High School Math for Afterschool

Sometimes you just stumble upon a fabulous website - you wonder how you missed it for so long! Here is a very rich and comprehensive site on high school math I just found. FREEganita.com. What makes the site so special is that it is closely tied to the Indian school curriculum - it has a topic map page showing how it links to the CBSE, ICSE and the state boards of all the 4 southern states plus Maharashtra.

Yes, the site is not interactive - but it gives good revision material for a high school student. It also has a nice section on Mathematics in Daily Life.

The best part is - the whole site can be downloaded as a .zip file - how useful for students struggling with low band width and limited internet access!

Lies, damned lies and... for Afterschool

One of my (many, many) dream projects is to take statistics on human development and make math 'problems'. While I will do so some day, you can have a dig at it right away!

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) publishes the Human Development Reports. Here is the link to the statistics in the latest HDR 2007-2008. Pick up the data and use it in your afterschool math programme. Let children browse, compare, stare, gasp... and yes, make graphs.

This is one session that is bound to make an impact - who can be flippant about numbers which say the life expectancy in Zambia is 40 years while in Japan it is 82?

Muggu Kolam Rangoli for Afterschool!

A nice site on Muggu is ikolam. It is a community site - you can learn to make kolam patterns, contribute your own, take part in contests, etc. There is also a Kids section on the site. It does not have much but the two memory games based on kolam/muggu designs should be interesting.

The NCERT math textbooks now have exercises on kolam designs! So having kids to copy kolam patterns or conjure up some of their own can fit confortably into your afterschool math class!

Speedy Computation Afterschool

High speed computational skills are seemingly in demand - or the mushrooming of Abacus and 'Vedic' Mathematics programmes would have us believe. While computational skills are not an end in themselves, gaining proficiency in these will boost a child's confidence in math.

Here are some resources on 'Vedic' Mathematics:

First, I think it is important to read this article 'Myths and Reality: on Vedic Mathematics' by S. G. Dani of the School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Next, here is an explanation of the 16 'sutras' that can help in speedy computation. This site is from the Math Resource Centre at IIT, Mumbai. Each of the sutras is explained with examples using Java Applets.

Math Lab Ideas for Afterschool

From the Central Board of Secondary Education is this resource on math lab activities for standards 3 to 8. It is available at the website of the Directorate of Education, Government of the NCT of Delhi.

The resource is a 25 page document listing activities that help in strengthening math concepts.

More Math Afterschool!

Following up on my earlier posts on textbooks - here is the link to textbooks from Tamil Nadu.

English versions of math textbooks are available from standard 6 upwards.

Considering the reputation that Tamil Nadu has in mathematics - you would not want to miss these resources!

If textbooks of all states were accessible on the internet for math drills at home and afterschool - would worksheets be redundant?

Textbooks from the Heart of India! - for Afterschool

I was in the 5th standard, I think, when I first saw a 'different' textbook - my cousins had come to India for the holidays and had brought their textbooks along. I drooled over the fine paper, the colour photographs and the friendly style.

Reading a different textbook can be a useful experience. Children have a tendency to stick to 'the right way' - which they believe is the way of their textbook. It is necessary to have them consider that there may be many right ways... and another textbook can help here.

Here is the link to textbooks from the heat of India - the state of Madhya Pradesh. While not all the links work, don't give up! I tried the links to the math textbooks - the ones for the 2nd, 3rd, 8th and 9th standards worked.

Folk Mathematics for Afterschool!

Remind yourself and your students that math should never lose its meaning!

A beautiful resource to help you do this is Numeracy Counts! a publication of the National Literacy Resource Centre. While it is basically meant for educators involved in adult literacy programmes, it is of relevance to every teacher and learner of mathematics.

The book explores 'folk mathematics' - math that is part of oral tradition, culture, art, language. It contains riddles, games, tricks and stories that are sure to delight. Best of all, as the source of this wonderful material is India's cultural context, it is sure to make you (and your students) get up and look around for more - in the muggus of their homes, in their grandmother's stories, in their kirana shop calculations...

Here is a pdf version of the book for download. Thanks to Arvind Gupta and Vidya Online.

More Worksheets for Afterschool!

I know there are many free worksheets sites out there. But for some weird reason I scout around for worksheets made by Indian educators to feature on this blog. Here is one I recently found: Online Home Tutors. The site offers math (and English) worksheets. Math worksheets are available for grades 3 to 8 and include arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, etc. One minor irritant is that they aren't in .pdf format.

And if you're looking for worksheets for the K-2 age group, my site offers free illustrated worksheets.

Resources for Afterschool Science and Math

Getting into the IIT is a cherished dream for both teenagers and their parents. A good foundation - with strong conceptual understanding and problem solving skills - is what afterschool programs for teenagers can help to build.

Here is a good resource for IIT aspirants and their teachers: Make your way to the IITs. This site offers ebooks, tests, videos and several links. While the site is useful for high school (standards 9 to 12), I would highly recommend it for educators at the elementary levels (standards 6 to 8) too. Access to good reference material will make the teacher's treatment of science more contextual, in-depth and meaningful.

Math Stories Afterschool

Hey Math! is an Indian company offering e-lessons on mathematics (to students in over 50 countries). The India edition for standards 6 - 10 is available at Rs. 1200 per class. Virtual manipulatives and animations bring alive math to the child. But wait, there is more...

This site has an interesting Math Stories section. Two stories are featured currently - I do hope more will follow.

Online Learning

How can Indian children get an international educational experience at costs that don't fleece their parents? The answer is online learning. There are many websites offering math practice online. One of them (that I haven't mentioned about in my earlier posts) is: Mathletics .

It offers unlimited math practice sessions at $ 99 per student for a 12 month period. Packages for schools are also available at $ 30 per student.

I wonder if sites such as this can offer special rates for afterschool centres. Must ask...

Abacus Afterschool

A very popular afterschool activity in India is learning the Abacus. There are several companies providing abacus learning programmes for children in the age group 5-15. Some of these companies are franchisees of larger firms located in the far east.

The programmes are typically organized into up to 7 levels. Each level represents a certain level of skill in both using the abacus and in mental arithmetic. Classes are usually held twice a week (for about 1-2 hours). The monthly fees range between Rs. 350 and Rs. 500.

Some of the popular abacus companies are:
UCMAS
Aloha
SIP Academy
Ideal Play Abacus
Brain-O-Brain

My own site www.kalyanis.com provides free course material (videos, worksheets) on learning to use the abacus. It focuses on beginning learners in the preschool and primary age range.

Worksheets for Afterschool

One of the easiest right things to do afterschool is to get children to work on worksheets (of course, if your afterschool program is only about working on worksheets - then it is hardly right!). With homework in India largely limited to exercises from the textbook, worksheets can be useful in several ways:

Revision: Working on 1 worksheet a day is a good way to revise math.
Motivation: It is easy to get a child to work on a worksheet. Being just one sheet they may seem less daunting. They are also generally well formatted (for example, with illustrations) and look friendly.

There are any number of websites offering free math worksheets. My own site (www.kalyanis.com) offers a small but growing collection of free worksheets on pre-primary and primary math. What makes these worksheets special is that they are rooted in the Indian context. I've also made these worksheets printer-friendly - they are in .pdf format. While they have illustrations - they are light on toner use!

Another site that seems useful is this. It is a commercial site offering worksheets for the pre-primary up to the 4th standard. They also offer 20 free samples.

Go to the Guru Afterschool!

Math help afterschool all through the year for just about Rs. 2000? Making quality education accessible is one of the boons of IT.

MathGuru is an online math tutoring website. It provides neatly explained solutions to every math problem in the NCERT math textbooks from standards 6 to 12. You can view the samples on the site to get a feel of it. It would benefit students who can handle school math by themselves with a little extra help. A added benefit is that it gives space for self-learning. Rushing from school to tution to another tution eats away all time - where is the time for the student to learn by herself? Services like this are of special value to students who follow other prescribed texts at school. They give the child a chance to dive deep into another course text and benefit from additional practice and different treatment.

Train for the Olympiad Afterschool!

What gives gifted Indian students the motivation to keep going? One of the answers is the olympiads - competitive academic events that test the students ability to grasp and apply concepts - way beyond the exercises in the textbooks. Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education is the nodal centre for Olympiad programmes in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Astronomy. The programmes aim at promoting excellence in science and mathematics among pre-university students. The exams are held in several stages - starting from the local to international levels. Students short-listed in the initial rounds are provided specialized coaching to help them face the international exam. Students of the XI and XII standards are eligible to participate - while some (astronomy) also have a Junior level where students from VIII standard upwards can join.

Free Math Resources

This post is about my site: www.kalyanis.com. It offers resources on math relevant to the K-2 stage. There are illustrated math story worksheets and flash presentations that you can download for free and use. At this site I hope to build a substantial collection of resources for parents who teach their children after school.