I am happy to report that the material for the fourth quarter of Level 1 Martian Mathematics is complete and ready for download. You can view the complete fourth quarter material here. The fourth quarter completes the single-digit skip counting with three and seven. There are also two weeks of basic geometry and one week of basic combinatorics. Combinatorics is concerned with counting objects under certain constraints, like no repetition or order doesn't matter. It is the basis for probability, which is why it is included here. Mostly, your students will just find it fun as they try and determine how many ice cream cones they can make from three flavors.
I am already starting to write the level 2 books. It will begin with fast mental calculations like doubling, quadrupling, halving, and multiplying and dividing by five and ten. This will form the basis for more fast mental calculations using the other single-digit numbers. The second quarter of level 2, will focus on utilizing place value in addition and subtraction. The third and fourth quarters will continue the work from the first quarter and cover fast mental multiplication by three, four, six, seven, eight, and nine, as well as the complete multiplication tables. I also plan to include simple fractions and money, though I haven't settled on where.
Over this past year, my older children were a bit jealous that the younger ones got the nice printed books. For this reason, I will develop level 5 of Martian Mathematics at the same time that I do level 2. Level 5 is intended for ages 9-10. The first quarter will cover logic, boolean logic, fallacies, and sets. The second quarter will cover basic algebraic operations, inverse operations including logarithms, and functions. The third quarter will cover linear, quadratic, and cubic equations including graphing. The fourth quarter will cover zeros of functions, higher order polynomials, probability and Pascal's triangle. At least that is the plan, for now.
Finally, as the mail system seems to be running more smoothly than it was during the worst days of COVID-19, digital downloads are no longer included with the print versions. If you want both digital and print, you will have to purchase both.
Until next time, thanks for your patronage.
David Ward
Martian Mathematics