Mathtuition88 will be starting a series of Homeschool Math Challenging Problems, aimed at age 8 to 10 (Grade 2 to 4).
This series is targeted at kids age 8 to 10 who are strong / gifted at mathematics and wish to further stretch their potential. It is also useful for children who may not be strong in math at the moment, but have a keen interest in math nonetheless.
In particular, it is very suitable for the following purposes:
Homeschooling for gifted kids
Preparation for GEP (Gifted Education Programme) screening and selection tests
Preparation for Math Olympiad
Puzzles for kids interested in math but find school work too easy.
PSLE challenging Math problem sums. The questions are also well within the PSLE Math Syllabus, and will be challenging to Primary 6 students as well.
This series of questions will follow the Singapore Math syllabus for Grade 3 students, covering the following topics:
Whole Numbers
Fractions
Money
Measurement (Length, Mass, Volume)
Time
Area and Perimeter (rectangle/square)
Although the syllabus above is elementary, we are choosing the toughest math questions (while still remaining in the framework of the syllabus). Hence, the title of the series is “Homeschool Math Challenging Puzzles for Grades 2-4”!
America (and prosperous European countries like UK and France), being 1st world countries, are sometimes concerned about “First World Problems” that most other countries do not have time/energy/money to care about.
Two health concerns that are very popular in America, but virtually unknown in most Southeast Asian countries are:
Vaccines Health Concerns
Although the main research linking MMR Vaccines to Autism has been retracted, many Americans, including President Donald Trump, have expressed their concern about vaccines. There are many anecdotal stories from parents whose children are doing well developmentally, until the day they took the vaccine where strange effects happened, including autistic regression.
Read here about a Nature article on “The real issues in vaccine safety”. By the way, Nature is the top science journal in the world, it is considered a tremendous achievement for any professor to publish in Nature.
The main author behind the MMR-Autism link, Andrew Wakefield, has published his version of the story in his book called “Callous Disregard”. He has been called a fraud, but yet many people do believe in his theory. Notably, in his retracted paper Wakefield did not claim that vaccines cause autism, he just investigated the link and basically said that more research needs to be done. His punishment was very severe (lost his UK doctor’s licence; he spent a decade earning his Gastroenterologist specialist degree), and some people believe it to be a conspiracy theory backed by the billion-dollar vaccine pharmaceutical giants.
“We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.” (Andrew Wakefield’s paper’s final conclusion.)
Basically, vaccinations rely on a phenomenon called “herd immunity”, it requires at least 90-95% of the population to be vaccinated in order for it to be successful. Hence, many people dropping out of the vaccinations can cause the “herd immunity” to be lost, which may be dangerous. On the other hand, vaccines contain dangerous ingredients like preservatives and viruses, and even used to contain a mercury compound called thimerosal, which no doubt is something unnatural that you wouldn’t want to put in your body. Due to the vaccine controversy, thimerosal has now been discontinued in most vaccines.
In Southeast Asia, I would say that more than 90% of people do not know what gluten is (though they eat it everyday). In Laymen’s terms, it is a type of protein that is found in wheat, barley, rye, etc. In America, many people have been tested to have gluten sensitivity, causing digestive problems such as Crohn’s disease or Celiac disease. Again, similar to vaccines, most people have no problem at all eating gluten, but in a selected minority of the population, it can cause severe problems.
The digestive system is said to be a “second brain”, (see The Strange Location of Your Second Brain). It contains a lot of neurotransmitters. Hence, many scientists have started to notice the gut-brain connection. Read this Harvard article that links anxiety and depression to digestive (gut) problems. Hence, for people with gluten sensitivity or allergy, gluten can be the starting trigger for their other problems like depression/anxiety. It has also been linked to ADHD and even schizophrenia.
Check out this book (1,001 positive reviews) on the connection between the gut (digestive system) and the brain:
Singapore Maths Tuition 