April/May 2014 Math Muscle Challenge!

Can you solve this month's Math Muscle Challenge?

Grades 1 – 5: A recycling center pays $1.90 for every pound of aluminum recycled and 90 cents for every pound of plastic recycled. Anthony collected 10 1/2 pounds of plastic bottles and 13 pounds of aluminum cans. If he turns the bottles and cans in to the recycling center, how much money will Anthony get?

Grades 6 and up: The volume of a cube is 8 in³. Amy created a new cube by quadrupling the length of each side of the original cube. How many times larger is the volume of the new cube than the volume of the original cube?

Answers to Last Month’s Math Muscle Challenge:

Grades 1 – 5: 3 ½ miles.

Grades 6 and up: 60 regular subs

Tips and Techniques: Finding 100% of a Number

Given a percentage of a number, how do you find 100%? We’ll show you different ways to find 100%.  

First, remember that 100% means “all of it… the whole thing.”

Example 1: 25% of what number is 5?

This question asks, “If 25% of a number is 5, then what is 100% of the number (the whole thing)?”

The strategy here is to see how many times the “percent number” (in this case, 25) goes into 100, and then count by that number until we reach 100—the whole thing.

Here, we’re told that 25% of a number is 5. So, to find 100% of the number, we count by 25s up to 100: 25, 50, 75, 100.

25% is 5, so

            50% is 10,

                        75% is 15, and

                                    100% is 20.

Example 2: A man spent $10.00, which was 20% of his money. How much money did he have to start?

If 20% of his money is $10.00, then 40% is $20.00. (20% + 20% = 40%)

Similarly, 60% is $30.00 (40% + 20% = 60%), 80% is $40.00, so 100% is $50.00—the amount of money the man had to start.

Here’s an even faster way to approach this problem. There are 5 20%s in 100%, so this problem calls for five sets of $10.00, which equals $50.00.

Example 3: 10 kids—5% of the kids enrolled at a particular school—are out sick. How many kids are enrolled at the school?

Here, 5% is 10 kids. Since there are 20 5s in 100, we multiply 20 by 10 and get 200, the total number of students at the school.

Try these:

1. 10% of what number is 8?
2. 20% of what number is 4?
3. 20% of what number is 6?
4. 50% of what number is 28?
5. 5% of what number is 11?
6. 1% of what number is 2?

Seize the Summer: Perfect Time to Get Ahead!

As we close the book on the 2013 – 2014 school year, at Mathnasium, we’re excited about the possibilities for our students once summer rolls around! Here are a few reasons to seize every opportunity this summer – the perfect time to get ahead.

•  Everything kids do during the summer helps them get ahead. According to a recent study, at summer’s end, students perform one month behind their progress in the spring. Because new school material is at a standstill, everything kids do during the summer to build their math skills helps them get ahead!

•  Summer is also the perfect time to revisit and fortify math foundations. Math concepts build over time, and often, we find that students fall behind because they didn’t fully understand topics taught in earlier grades. While filling in these gaps is a primary objective of the Mathnasium program 365 days a year, without school stress or homework pressure to worry about, kids have even more time to step back and master these skills over the summer.

•  We love helping our students prepare for next year’s challenges. Another summertime perk: more time to get a head start on material they’ll encounter next school year. And the more prepared students feel, the more excited they’ll be about challenges that lie ahead. Third party studies show significant increase in grade level skills after three months at Mathnasium!

Mathnasium’s summer program offers a customized program for your child, flexible scheduling, and many opportunities to make this your child’s most productive summer yet! Call or email us by May 31^st to get an early summer registration discount. For more information, check out our website.

P.S. May is Teacher Appreciation Month! From all of us at Mathnasium, we’d like to say a big thank you to all teachers for giving young learners the gift of knowledge and for allowing us to support their math curriculum.

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” – Chinese proverb

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela