Curriculum

Engaging Math Circles offers a full year program for grades K-12. Our curriculum covers all aspects of math in depth with an emphasis on building nonstandard problem-solving skills. EMC student will learn, practice and master everything that is needed for his/her current grade level. From basic arithmetics to developing strategies for challenging, non-standard problems.

Our curriculum can be used to supplement and enrich the math teaching at school or as a full curriculum for homeschoolers.

Our students usually advance to learning material 1-2 grade levels above their current school grade level. Students are grouped according to their knowledge and skill level, rather than current grade level in school.

Our program is a combination of the top mathematical teaching approaches from all over the world. We seek out and encorporate best existing mathematical textbooks available to date. Among these are Singapore Math, Russian Math texts and Beast Academy for elementary school students. Art of Problem Solving courses are used for middle and high school students. We always enrich the lessons with problems from various national and international mathematical competitions and math circles.

Our youngest students learn through games, puzzles, and hands-on activities that allow them to have fun while touching math with their fingers. Kindergarten program lays down a solid basis for the child's number sense, spatial reasoning, logic, and critical thinking.

It is very important for young kids to connect abstract words and symbols to their actual meanings. We believe that the best way to do it is through involving all senses. Students draw, build and construct beautiful 2d and 3d models of geometrical shapes and designs while learning about their properties. We model numbers and operations with them with various manipulatives and play games to develop attention and memory for knowledge retention instead of dry repetitive drills.

It is proven that young children learn best from their peers and that material is best internalized and understood when presented to someone else. Our students learn to express their thoughts and ideas, practice brainstorming and participate in discussions, verbalize their thinking and teach their solutions to their friends.

By the end of the year, K students will be able to operate freely with numbers within the 1st 100. Count forward and backward, skip count and do simple arithmetic. Compare numbers and recognize patterns. Know and understand the place value of 2 digit numbers. Solve simple word problems and explain their reasoning verbally and with simple diagrams and pictures.

By the end of the year, 1st-grade students will be able to operate freely with 2 and 3 digit numbers, understand the concepts of sum and difference, multiplication and division (grouping and sharing equally). Solve more than one step word problems. Use variables to represent unknown quantities and solve simple equations.

Our program puts a strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking skills. Alongside with learning the fundamentals of mathematics, competition level math problems are added to each topic learned.

Students will learn how to solve increasingly complex word problems by employing various creative problem solving strategies rather than standard solution algorithms or templates. Students learn how to break down complicated word problems into smaller parts and to organize their thoughts on paper in a logically connected chain of statements and conclusions.

At these levels we add the emphasis on attaining the ability to communicate math in a written form. An essential part of each lesson now is taking notes, summarizing word problems, and drawing graphs and diagrams to aid in finding a solution.

Our elementary school students continue to express their thoughts verbally, learning how to problem solve as part of a team. They share and express their ideas in meaningful group discussions, learn how to advocate for their points of view, and practice teaching their peers.

Students will gain a solid understanding of place value and will be able to add, subtract, and compare multi-digit numbers. Multiplication and division concepts are introduced early on. Topics such as: parity, order, number sequences and patterns, expressions, and basic algebraic equations are covered. In our introduction to geometry we explore the classic 2 and 3 dimensional shapes and their properties.

At this grade level students will operate freely with addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers, and will gain a solid mastery of division and multiplication. Students will learn how to add, subtract and compare basic fractions. We learn how to model word problems by setting up and solving algebraic equations. They will learn to work with standard measurement units of length, weight, volume, time, and money. In geometry we will classify angles and shapes according to their properties. We will find and prove the formulas for perimeter and area of triangles and quadrilaterals. Students learn how to determine the reasonability of their calculations by estimating and rounding.

Our 4th grade students will have full mastery of basic operations with integers, fractions, and decimals. Concepts of greatest common factor, least common multiple, whole number exponents are introduced at this level. Basic combinatorics, and counting techniques are learned to lay the foundation for statistics and probability. We introduce formal logic deduction principles by which students learn how to make valid inferences based on the true / false values of statements. In geometry we expand upon the concepts learned in 3rd grade, adding a more detailed study of angles, lines, and shapes.

5th grade level students will gain a solid understanding and knowledge of topics such as: factors and multiples, fractions, decimals, percents, square roots and exponents, ratios and rates, arithmetic and geometric progressions. Word problems will now require the application of knowledge from all of these topics and we will concentrate on modeling and solving them with the use of variables and equations. We will extend the study of combinatorics that we began in 4th grade into applications in probability and statistics. In geometry we focus on properties of 3D solids and will learn how to find volumes and surface area. At this level we begin practicing writing proofs for different math theorems, paying special attention to presenting our solutions as a chain of concrete logically connected statements.

For students at these grade levels, groups are formed on demand.

We offer classic courses of Pre-Algebra, Algebra I and II, Geometry, Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Probability, and Statistics. Our courses prepare students for SAT and AP exams, as well as various math competitions.

Courses can be taken at any grade level if the student is able to demonstrate the required prerequisite knowledge for the course.