Mathamanimals try to take the fear out of math

Today the article in the Lawrence Journal World came out.

Mark Schmidt began volunteering as a math and reading teacher at his children’s elementary school in Topeka in 1995. It was there where he realized that students who were struggling with math weren’t struggling because they weren’t trying but because they were scared.

“If you can take the fear away from math, you can help them progress at their own rate,” Schmidt said.

As he continued to volunteer at the school and help his own children, he began to write poems and rhymes having to do with numbers. Those poems are what shaped the math books and games he’s been designing and creating for the past 17 years.

The Ditto Kiddo Club is a series of 11 books for second-graders that jumble together birthdays and animals, cleverly named mathamanimals, to help teach children about numbers through games, counting and illustrations.

“When kids are playing, they don’t know they’re doing math,” Schmidt said.

Read the whole article at the newspaper website: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/aug/05/mathamanimals-take-fear-out-math/