MoMath Online: Student Sessions

Monday, May 30 to Friday, June 3

Click here for next week’s schedule.

The sessions below are all online.  Click here for in-person student discovery sessions.

Whether your child is already passionate about mathematics or just starting to explore its wonders, MoMath Online: Student Sessions will expose your child to cool areas of mathematics not covered in school and stoke the flames for a lifelong appreciation of mathematics.

Each session is 45 minutes.

Pricing: Welcome to spring!  For a limited time only, all Student Sessions are offered at the reduced price of $15, with a special member price of $5.  Not a member?  Join today!  Classes marked “free*” are offered to everyone at no cost, while free spots in every class have been set aside for families with financial need.  Simply register early for these limited spots.

All times listed below are in Eastern Time (New York).
Please click on a time to register.

Grades Online Session Mon 5/30 Memorial Day Tue 5/31 Wed 6/1 Thu 6/2 Fri 6/3
PK – 2 Shape Shifters 4:15 pm (free*)
2 – 4 Magic Squares 3:00 pm
2 – 5 Points and Shapes 4:15 pm (free*)
5 – 8 Rep-tiles 3:00 pm
Free* sessions are free for everyone.
Free spots in every class have been set aside for families facing significant financial hardship; sign up early!  Please prioritize these limited spots for families in need.

 

Daily Sessions

Sessions are available for grades pre-K through 12, as indicated above.

After you register for your 45-minute session, you will be sent a link and instructions so you can join the fun via Zoom, a free video conferencing platform.  Multiple family members may participate in a session, but please limit the link to one device, as there is a limit on devices.

Session Themes

Our online education sessions offer several inspiring mathematical themes for grades pre-K through 12.

Shape Shifters (grades pre-K through 2): Shapes are all around us and form the basic building blocks of modern life.  Using squares, rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, and hexagons, students will discover how shapes are different from one another and how mathematicians identify and name them.  Interactive activities and games will teach students about geometrical symmetries and how to construct polygons with many sides, including the tetracontakaihexagon!  Materials needed: a printout to be provided and scissors (to cut out shapes prior to session).

Discovering Polyominoes (grades K through 3): You’ve heard of dominoes, but have you ever heard of trominoes, tetrominoes, or pentominoes?  Discover the many surprising shapes you can create simply by combining single-size squares.  Explore various types of symmetry using these unique objects.  Warning: Solving polyomino puzzles may provide hours of fun!  Materials needed: a printout to be provided, pencil, marker, and scissors.  Optional materials: tape.

Tangram Teasers (grades K through 3): Exercise your mind and stretch your spatial reasoning while searching for solutions to fun tangram puzzles.  Learn to create specific figures by combining seven polygons.  If you get stuck, try another way!  Discover multiple strategies to solve these classic dissection puzzles.  Materials needed: scissors and printout to be provided.  Optional materials: tangram puzzle set.

Prime Time (grades 1 through 3): Prime numbers are the building blocks of arithmetic, and they show up in all sorts of surprising places.  From strange clocks to many-pointed stars, primes can teach us about number relationships and patterns.  Explore primes while using skip counting to create geometric patterns and learn the origin of these very special numbers!  Materials needed: paper, pencil, and printouts to be provided.  Optional materials: markers.

Ghostly Graphs (grades 1 through 4): Learn the basics of graph theory by counting the ways a small ghost can pass through the walls of a given house.  Discover which is more important: the number of walls, the number of rooms, or the overall layout.  Explore these questions, as well as starting and ending positions, different types of paths, and other intriguing questions.  Have fun in a unique and accessible introduction to this sophisticated branch of mathematics!  Materials needed: pencil, paper, and markers (4 colors).

Magic Squares (grades 2 through 4): Magic squares are a set of puzzles that have long fascinated many of the world’s most brilliant thinkers.  Dating back over 4000 years to ancient China, magic squares are those on which the sums of each column, row, and diagonal are always “magically” the same number!  Discover surprising strategies to solve these mysterious puzzles and learn how to create your very own magic square.  Materials needed: pencil and paper.

Perplexing Partitions (grades 2 through 4): How do you regroup the numbers on a grid and still keep the sums the same?  Through clever counting and rearranging, discover how to build the same number with fewer and fewer units and learn to solve a unique family of addition puzzles.  Materials needed: pencil, graph paper (printout to be provided). 

Cryptarithmetic (grades 2 through 5): Arithmetic is fun, but arithmetic with letters is even better!  Using process of elimination and clever logic, students will explore fundamental properties of base-10 arithmetic in a unique and challenging way.  Join us for CRYPT4R1THM3T1C!  Materials needed: pencil and paper.

Points and Shapes (grades 2 through 5): Is there an easy way to find the areas of geometric shapes?  The answer lies in the geoboard, a square grid used to explore polygons.  Starting with rectangles and triangles and quickly advancing to polygons of any size and shape, explore this fun and unconventional way to calculate area.  Come discover the curious relationship between interiors and boundaries in shapes you design yourself!  Materials needed: pencil and graph paper.

Exhibit Explorations (grades 2 through 6): The interactive exhibits at the National Museum of Mathematics offer visitors a wonderfully accessible introduction to sophisticated math topics not often covered in school.  In this series, students will be able to experience an exhibit virtually, as well as participate in a hands-on activity designed to illustrate the principles behind the exhibit.  Each session features a specific exhibit and includes an exhibit video, discussion, and activity.  Come take a look at actual MoMath exhibits such as Math Square, Pythagorean Puzzlers, Hyper Hyperboloid, and more!  Materials needed are typically school supplies, such as paper, pencil, markers, ruler, or scissors, and will be listed in the confirmation email.

Color Grids (grades 3 through 6): In this workshop, students create cool color patterns using simple rules.  Each pattern is created by following a recipe, and you will try different recipes to discover new patterns.  Explore simple cellular automata by generating your own infinite patterns!  Materials needed: Colored pencils/markers (2 colors), graph paper, and a printout to be provided. 

Hailstone Numbers (grades 3 through 6): Hailstone numbers are fascinating patterns of numbers that increase and decrease sporadically according to a set rule until they finally plummet in size and eventually become the number 1!  These number sequences are easy to create but often impossible to fully understand.  Come learn what these numbers actually are, why they are so mystifying, and how they might just represent the next big breakthrough in mathematics.  Materials needed: pencil and paper.

Math in the Corner Pocket (grades 3 through 6): Explore angles and the law of reflection while tracing the path of a billiard ball as it bounces off the walls of a pool table.  Use patterns to discover a simple method to predict in which pocket the ball will land and learn how to prove your prediction is correct.  Game on!  Materials needed: pencil, ruler, graph paper (printout to be provided).

Making Math Solid (grades 4 through 8): Explore geometry and discover the beautiful structure of polyhedra!  Using modular origami techniques that involve folding multiple sheets of paper, students will create their very own polyhedra (e.g., a tetrahedron, a hexahedron, or a decahedron). Different days will focus on different polyhedra, highlighting their fascinating properties.  Materials needed: 6 to 10 sheets of origami paper or 6 to 10 paper squares (6 inches by 6 inches).

Poltergeist Paths (grades 4 through 8): Dig into graph theory by exploring the connection between vertices and edges and the walls of a haunted house.  Discover a method to find out whether a ghost can haunt a castle and whether you can draw a figure without lifting the pen.  Explore how these two problems are related and what they have to do with bridges in 18th-century Prussia!  Have fun in a unique and accessible introduction to this sophisticated branch of mathematics.  Materials needed: pencil, paper, and markers (4 colors).

Breaking Codes (grades 5 through 8): How do computers keep our passwords secret?  Explore multiplicative ciphers, broken codes, and prime numbers, while encoding and decoding your own secret messages.  Learn how cryptography helps protect our private information.  Qojismo islofbocgobe!  Materials needed: paper and pencil.  Optional materials: calculator.

Rep-tiles (grades 5 through 8): Come discover mathematical rep-tiles, geometric shapes that can tile into repetitions of themselves.  Learn about areas, scaling, and mathematical proofs, while solving fun rep-tiles puzzles!  Materials needed: pencil, paper, printouts to be provided, and scissors (to cut out shapes prior to session).

Win like a Mathematician (grades 5 through 8): Games are not only fun to play, but fun to solve!  Mathematicians have invented many games that present challenging math problems, some of which are still unsolved.  Join MoMath’s education team online to learn, play, and analyze a variety of mathematical strategy games.  Different days focus on different games, including classics such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Nim, and Hex, as well as a few mystery-guest games!  Materials needed for the games are minimal and will be listed in the confirmation email.

Chessboards and Dominoes (grades 6 through 10): What shapes can you fit together to cover a chessboard?  Dominoes?  Trominoes?  Learn about mathematical proofs while exploring patterns of odd and even numbers and experimenting with real dominoes and chessboards.  This challenging session is for students who love math and are ready for perplexing puzzles!  Materials needed: pencil, graph paper (printout to be provided). Optional materials: chessboard, dominoes.

Fractal Fascinations (grades 7 through 12): Fractals with self-similarity are beautiful and mysterious objects that are composed of miniature versions of themselves.  Famous shapes like the Sierpinski triangle and the Koch snowflake have mystifying properties that defy our normal rules of geometry.  Come learn about these famous fractals and what makes them so unusual.  Materials needed: pencil, paper, and printout to be provided.

Puzzle Sensations (grades 9 through 12): Explore mathematical puzzles that grabbed the headlines!  Learn to solve spectacular and controversial puzzles using logic, probability, and basic graph theory.  Develop puzzle-solving strategies while diving into these news-making mathematical conundrums.  Materials needed: pencil and paper.

Registration Fees

Registration fees are pay-if-you-can per session.  Please note that sessions of the same name are repeated sessions, not continuations of earlier sessions.

To give the gift of math, visit mathgift.momath.org for gift registrations for MoMath Online: Student Sessions.

Session Policies

Strictly no refunds, no credits, and no transfers will be permitted.  Spots are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Be sure to read all MoMath Online: Student Sessions Policies prior to registration.