 Olympic rings and flag of Japan.
Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Byron created the game Continent Race at age 6, during a month-long stay at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. Byron enjoyed helping Mrs. Ellen Donovan, of the Family Life Center, keep track of country medal counts during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Once the games ended, "Ms. Ellen" challenged Byron to create a game using flags. Byron took the challenge and ran with it! When he began creating the game, he immediately decided he wanted to create it for children in the hospital, so that they could play something fun AND learn while they recovered.
Byron started out helping keep track of medals won and identifying world flags. That lead to matching the flags to a map of the world, which quickly developed into our game Continent Race! You can keep track of medals won in this year's Olympics by clicking here. We also have a fantastic Olympics sale going on over at Amazon. Right now, the game is 12% off, but you can save an additional 11% through the end of the Olympics now through August 8th by clicking on the coupon in Amazon. That's a total of 23% savings! This also includes Prime One-Day shipping, so your family can use the game to create your own Olympics medal chart at home before the closing ceremony. We hope you all enjoy the Olympics as a family and may we all watch athletes around the world strive for greatness with the new motto, "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together."
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There’s something particularly satisfying about solving a math problem in a non-traditional way. Although some schools teach that there are various ways to get to the right answer to a math problem, other schools may want every student to use a standard method to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Whether your kids are taught a variety of methods or one standard method for each type of problem, when they’re doing their homework - or if you’re homeschooling - there are plenty of math tricks for kids you can teach at home.  Many of us associate the word fluency with language. Children become fluent in the language spoken in their home, quickly picking up the ability to speak and understand it. Kids who start to learn a second language at an early age are likely to become fluent more easily than those who start when they’re older, but that doesn’t mean older kids can’t become fluent in a second language. The same is true for math fluency. If you’re wondering about the importance of math fluency for kids, you should know that the earlier you start math fluency practice with them the better, but even older kids can gain mathematical fluency - especially if you make it fun.  You’ve probably used inspirational quotes to teach your kids values that you’d like them to embrace. Or, maybe you’ve had your kids repeat quotes as affirmations to build up their confidence. But, have you ever thought about using math quotes for kids to encourage them to embrace why math is important or help them remember some math facts? It might not be the first thing you think of when reinforcing math skills, but using math sayings for kids can be another method you can use to make math fun. One great thing about math quotes for kids that inspire is that they can lead to additional conversations about math. Understanding some funny math quotes may take some explanation about the mathematical terms used in them. Kids may remember basic math definitions based on the funny math sayings or positive math quotes you teach them. If you teach your kids famous math quotes, or at least math quotes said by famous people, you can also get a little biography and history in, too. For example, there’s a math quote below by Paul Harvey. If your child doesn’t know who Paul Harvey was, you can talk about who he was, maybe even getting into a discussion about the importance of radio announcers way back when. Who knows where these math quotes for kids may lead you. Check out our other math for kids posts:  The ability to do mental math is an important skill for kids to have. What is mental math? The simplest mental math definition is math calculated in your head instead of calculated using a pencil and paper or a calculator. When we teach our youngest children to memorize that 1+1=2, we’re introducing mental math exercises to them. 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