Spatial Sense Makes Math Sense

Book excerpt: Spatial Sense Makes Math Sense: How Parents Can Help Their Children Learn Both brings the strengths of both algebra (arithmetic) and geometry into focus by showing how spatial relationships can make both make more sense. Parents will learn how to further develop and improve their child’s spatial sense using visual-spatial strategies of classifying, drawing diagrams, big idea concept building, visualizing, and more. As Sawyer encourages, “Even if the pictures are not good, the effort of making them will leave lasting traces in the mind and can cause the work to be remembered.” Whether you had a preference for geometry and endured algebra, loved algebra and never understood geometry, or were one of those people who never recognized a purpose for any of the math topics or, in truth, in any mathematics, this book will show parents how developing spatial sense can help visually explain both algebra and geometry relationships. You will read about Sophie Germain who believed that algebra and geometry worked hand-in-hand because, as she described them, algebra is written geometry and geometry is figured algebra.