Is It Possible to Have Too Much Math?

mathmom
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 22:24:19 +0000

I had an uncommonly mathy guy - at about seven he got interested in programming as dh was doing a project at home using Visual Basic and he started looking over his shoulder. He ended up getting sucked into programming and stopped zipping quite so fast through online math classes.

One thing we found, is my son got interested in all sorts of math that is not part of the normal curriculum. There are lots of fun books out there. Here are some I remember he enjoyed:

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat Paperback by Theoni Pappas (several in this series)

Sideways Arithmetic from the Wayside School - Louis Sachar (several in this series)

1000 Play Thinks by Ivan Moscovich - probably the best book of visual math puzzles ever

A little later in elementary school (4th or 5th grade)

Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold R. Jacobs

The Book of Numbers by John H. Conway and Richard Guy

In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery

This is very old, but still up on the web! http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/ (My son loved the Hotel Infinity)

At any rate, don’t worry about colleges, it will work itself out, but do let your kid follow his interests.