We are always looking for new ways to support Boston Public Schools students and the academic mentors who tutor and mentor them. Part of doing this is sharing techniques & strategies that can be used in the classroom. We’d like to share with you one of our favorite new math tools, Kakooma™.
Kakooma was created by our friend and supporter Greg Tang. Greg is keenly interested in the work that we do with BPS students and has led a number of pro-bono support sessions for our math volunteers. An important part of his personal mission is to help children and adults become better in math. He is working hard to create better teaching methods, shift the focus to more critical, abstract thinking skills, and make important mathematical concepts easier and more intuitive.
Kakooma starts with a deceptively simple idea: in a group of numbers, find the number that is the sum of two others. Sounds easy, right? Sometimes it is, but other times the answer is right in front of you and you just can’t see it. To solve a single puzzle, you often end up doing dozens of calculations in your head, sometimes more than a hundred. Before you know it, your mind is sharper and your math skills are better.
Play Kakooma & test your math skills here.
After more than 1,200 workshops, conferences and school visits in the last 10 years, Greg has taken everything he’s learned and created an online program that helps students meet the new Common Core Standards. We believe in the online program that Greg has developed and encourage you to check it out! Subscriptions begin at $29 per year.
Subscriptions for the online program include:
- Clever strategies
- Games
- Puzzles
- Activities
- Books: Math Fables Too, The Grapes of Math (an NY Times best-seller!), Math Potatoes, Math For All Seasons, The Best of Times, Math Appeal, Math-terpieces, and Math Fables
Together, they develop strong computational and mental math skills, teach abstract and algebraic thinking skills, and provide the extensive repetition and practice kids need to achieve true mastery.
Watch Greg make math easy for adults on Newbury Street in Boston.
Dr. Anne M. Collins, Ph.D., Director of Mathematics Programs at Lesley University says this about Kakooma:
“Check out the puzzles and games on Greg Tang’s new math website . . . they are amazing. They will be phenomenal for all students and all grades and will definitely give them incentive to do mental math and learn their facts. But, beware, they’re addicting!”
Take $10 off the one year subscription price by entering the following coupon code: BPARTNER
The discounted price is $19/year. This offer is good until January 15, 2012.
For every subscription purchased with this coupon code, GregTangMath.com will donate 50% of the proceeds to Boston Partners through January 15. Thanks for believing in and supporting our work, Greg!
Purchase a subscription here.
*Each subscription is licensed for use on one computer at a time. If you want more than one person to play at a time, simply enter the corresponding number of subscriptions in the quantity field and click the Purchase button.