What is S.T.E.M.?

With the full implementation of the Common Core Curriculum in the 2014-2015 school year, you will be hearing lots more about S.T.E.M. or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as drivers for the economy of the future. Two-thirds of my Schools of Hope students this year want to be scientists. Their interests range from space to oceanography to curing diseases. Most kids are natural scientists; they want to know how things work.  In the coming months, we’ll be looking at a wide range of books, websites and apps that inform kids about S.T.E.M. subjects. Two we have already featured are Why With Nye on the Juno mission to Jupiter and Bedtime Math’s daily math problems for kids of all ages.

Bedtime Math Now Has an App

Bedtime Math now has a free app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. You can download it to your devise at the iTunes Store. You can read my review here. Add this to your list of ideas to prevent summer brain drain!

Bedtime Math

The main focus of this blog is reading but this was such a great idea, I had to pass it along. Yesterday, on NPR’s Morning Edition, Laura Overdeck was interviewed about her nightly math problem ritual with her children. You can listen to the interview here. Overdeck wanted her children to be math literate so she started giving her children a math problem at night along with their nightly bedtime story. Her friends started asking her for math problems for their kids and her website Bedtime Math was born.

Every day there is a story, today’s is about anteaters and their prey, with math problems for wee ones, little kids and big kids. The problems for the wee ones are simple adding, subtracting or counting ones. The little kids and big kids problems are more complex and take greater skills at each level. There are also bonus questions each day. You can sign up to have each day’s story and problems e-mailed to you. Try it out with your family!