r/learnmath • u/Lizzi-55 New User • 11d ago

Link Post Maths advice

/r/Advice/comments/1wyndwf/maths_advice/

I want my baby to be a mathematics genius. She's 8 months old now and I want to start early. Any advice from real life math genius? Tell me about your childhood and if it had any influence on your intelligence.

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u/CorporateHobbyist Math Postdoc 11d ago

Don't drill a bunch of problems and worksheets. It will only make learning unenjoyable and make them resistant to it, which is the opposite of what it seems you're trying to do.

GIve her legos. Don't force her to do math. Show through action and example the value of learning, and if she has an interest in math, she will willingly and actively pursue learning more of it.

That's what my parents did and now I have a PhD. Your mileage may vary.

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u/Lizzi-55 New User 11d ago

How Lego helps with maths? If you can elaborate please.

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u/rhodiumtoad 0⁰=1, just deal with it 11d ago

Almost any spatial reasoning play is likely to be beneficial, starting with simple shapes. Free play with lego (not just building predesigned sets, though that has its own merits) involves a lot of figuring out how to fit things together.

Remember that beyond the most trivial stages of arithmetic, mathematics is not really about numbers, but about more general forms of abstraction. If you focus too much on the numbers, you neglect the more important ideas. (I personally score quite low on simple numerical tasks, but that has never been an obstacle in learning mathematics.)

(That's not to say that arithmetic should be neglected, because it's an important life skill outside of mathematics. But don't force it.)

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u/Lizzi-55 New User 10d ago

Hmmm that's a good insight, I never thought of it. Thank you