Solving a Problem and Learning a Language

Parents often find themselves revisiting basic math problems from early school years. Depending on the subject, the level of understanding, and how things work, teaching our little ones can be a somewhat daunting task.

With this in mind, my daughter was struggling with some math exercises. After a few one-on-one sessions with me, it felt like we were starting from scratch the next day. Since she already attends Kumon (a learning method) for Portuguese, and after speaking with my father, who was a teacher for 20 years, I realized that in the beginning, to truly grasp a subject — especially math — repetition helps a lot (just like any adult learning process). This, of course, goes hand in hand with understanding the calculations. It's important to remember that comprehending the process, doing mental math, and other shortcuts we learn later are entirely different from teaching an 8-year-old to do the same. We likely didn't directly learn how to calculate mentally or take shortcuts — that comes with time.

Combining the useful with the enjoyable, since I was already studying Next.js, I decided to create a small math application to help her focus on practicing a single type of math exercise. The only external effort she needs to make is to say the answers out loud and avoid guessing. But if she calculates, she'll know whether she’s correct or not.

The process is simple: flashcards with math problems. It’s possible to select the type of operation to practice, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. The application has internal limits, and at the end of each session, it records the user’s number of correct and incorrect answers.

The project is available on GitHub and can be accessed here: gbflores/math-app.

It is also already hosted on Vercel: math-app-psi.vercel.app