Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on an app called Maple Leap that helps kids from Kindergarten to Grade 6 practise math and reading while following the Ontario curriculum.

The idea was to make something that feels more like a game for kids, while still being useful for teachers and parents.

Teachers can create a class, have students join using a simple 6-letter code, and track their progress, accuracy, and time spent. There’s also a weekly email report so you can see how everyone’s doing.

I’m looking for teachers, parents, or anyone in education who’d be willing to try it out and give me some feedback.

You can sign up for free here:
https://maplehilllearning.com/app

I specifically made it a webapp so that kids in class can use it on their Chromebooks but an iOS app is coming soon.

It’s still a work in progress, and I’m constantly making improvements. I’d genuinely love to hear what you think, what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see added.

Thanks everyone!

I built this for students to practice arithmetic and strategy without it feeling like worksheets. No accounts needed, works on school Chromebooks. I’d appreciate teacher feedback on what would make it more useful.

For a few years, my dream was to be a software engineer. Then that dream was crushed.

Then, my dream was to be a mathematician. Now that dream is crushed.

What do I dream about now? Why bother if it's just going to be crushed? Why do they keep going for the things that I dream of instead of what's practical? Where are the AI managers, recruiters, execs, etc., why do they get to keep their dreams?

I’ve been building interactive math and physics experiences for SPECS AR glasses. Here are a few early examples: a hyperbolic paraboloid, solids of revolution, a double pendulum, and refraction (Snell’s law).

What interests me is the possibility of interacting directly with mathematical objects in 3D space, rather than just looking at diagrams or equations on a screen. Research suggests that gestures can support learning abstract mathematical concepts and generalizing to new problems (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2012; Seccia & Goldin-Meadow, 2024), so AR glasses with hand tracking feel like an especially compelling medium for this.

Any recommendations for mathematical concepts that would be a good fit?
How would you use something like this in your practice?

Hi, I'm studying for the placement test using the paths. But I'm barely memorizing anything because it constantly just throws me new stuff. I just need a 14 in the test to get the class I need, any tips? Learning on what to focus on and tricks to memorize and recognize equations would be really helpful.

i do the how many halves fit in 3 thing and it works fine with whole numbers, but the second it's something like 2/3 divided by 4/5 the kids lose it and invert and multiply turns into a magic trick again.

what do you actually show them that sticks, or do most of you just go with common denominators

I want to be good at maths.

Here is a short contest-math warm-up I use to see whether students understand a ratio as equal-sized parts, rather than treating 2:3 as a fraction of the total.

Prompt: A box has red and blue counters in the ratio 2:3. After 4 red counters are added, there are equally many of each color. How many counters were in the box originally?

Before anyone calculates, ask students to sketch two equal boxes for red and three equal boxes for blue. The extra blue box is exactly the difference that the 4 added red counters close. So one box is 4 counters: originally 8 red and 12 blue, for 20 total.

Two quick checks reveal more than the answer alone:

• Ask, “What does one box represent?” A student who says “one fifth of the original total” can connect the picture to 20; a student who calls red “two thirds of the total” needs another look at the whole.

• Ask, “If 4 blue counters were removed instead, what would the original counts be?” They should still get 8 and 12.

For a one-minute extension, change 4 to 6. Students can predict the original total is 30 without redrawing; then explain why the total is always five times the initial difference in this particular 2:3 setup.

How do you help younger students move from a bar model to a general rule without rushing into cross-multiplication?

Disclosure: I publish paid visual AMC 8 beginner workbooks. This full classroom prompt is free to use.

Some background: I'm a parent, not a teacher. I've been building math games for my kids, and one of them turned into something bigger than I planned, so I'd like opinions from people who actually teach this stuff.

The core idea is a target number. A monster has shields like 15 or 77, you have a hand of number cards, and you build an expression that equals the shield exactly. 5 × 3 for the 15, (5 + 6) × 7 for the 77. What I noticed with my own kids is that they start working backwards: "77, that's 7 × 11, can I make an 11?" That's the kind of thinking I was hoping for.

A few design choices I'm not sure about:

1. Brackets are locked at the start of a run and you earn them later. My thinking was that kids should get comfortable with order of operations first, but maybe that's backwards.

2. In the fraction tower, division never fails. 3 ÷ 4 just becomes a 3/4 card. That made fractions feel a lot less scary for my kids, but I don't know if it skips over something important.

3. The negative number tower (3 − (−5) = 8 and so on) is noticeably harder than the other two. I can't tell if it's good hard or just frustrating hard.

It's here if you want to poke at it: https://mathmancer.numberdale.com (browser, no ads, nothing collected that identifies a student).

I'm also wondering whether this could work in a classroom. Everyone gets the same Daily Tower each day, so a whole class could try the same climb and compare. Would you actually use something like that as a warm-up, or is it too much of a game for class time?

But the brackets question is the one I keep going back and forth on. Would you give them from the start?

Posting on Saturday, following sub rules. I'm very interested to know what math teachers think of this idea, since my background is computer science.

Hi, I'm a solo developer and a teacher's friend, so I built this for classrooms first. Hexamat is a daily math puzzle: students combine 7 digits on a honeycomb board with + − × ÷ to reach a target number.

Why I think it might work in class:

- Everyone gets the same daily challenge, so you can talk about the same solutions the next day.

- Group rooms for up to 20 players: you create the room and students join from their own phones.

- Practice mode with a time attack for warm-ups.

- It's free on Android, with ads. There's no account needed to start.

I'd genuinely value feedback from teachers: is the rule clear for 11–14 year olds? What would make it useful in your lessons? Happy to answer any questions.

Today is the last one we will experience all our life and the last one of the century, the next one will be in April 5, 2103 so enjoy it

Hot take: most math teacher professional development spends too much time on new content and new tools, and too little on the everyday routines that decide whether students actually practise and talk about math.

Most math teachers already know the content well. What changes a classroom is smaller and harder: how a lesson opens, how mistakes are handled, how often students explain their reasoning, how practice is spaced across the week. Those are habits, and habits only change with repeated practice and follow-up, not with one session on a new framework.

If I had a term of PD time for a math department, I'd spend it on two or three routines, tried in class between short sessions, with colleagues comparing notes.

Disclosure: I'm Roshan, COO and co-founder of Chaos Theory, a learning and development company that runs faculty development programmes. Not linking anything.

For math teachers here: which single classroom routine has made the biggest difference to how your students engage, and how did you learn it?

Hi everyone—I’m behind MathsLove, a website with grade-specific maths assessments for Grades 4–10.

Each assessment has 15 questions and a 10-minute limit. The basic assessment and MathsLove’s MIQ score are free, and students can review their answers afterwards.

One way to use it is as a starting point for a follow-up conversation: choose a missed question, ask the student to explain their approach, then work through a similar example together.

MIQ takes accuracy and completion time into account. It’s an educational assessment score, not a clinical IQ result or a fixed measure of a child’s ability.

You can explore the grade options here: https://mathslove.com

Happy to answer questions about how the assessment works.