A child’s right brain is dominant at a young age.

But as they grow older and start to make daily logical choices, the right hemisphere of the brain will slowly be under-utilised, unless creative subjects such as music or art are pursued.

In order to maximise the potential of the brain, both hemispheres need to be as active as possible at a young age.

How Your Brain Exercises

Here’s a fun fact. Did you know when a child does a mental calculation of a problem such as 5 + 3, many interchanges between the left and right side of the brain are happening simultaneously?

Here’s how it works:

When a child looks at a number, the brain processes it as a symbol.

As they try to decode the symbol and its meaning, they are using the left (cognitive) side of the brain.

As the child tries to calculate the equation through mental calculation, e.g. visualisation of 1 top bead of the abacus, adding 3 bottom beads of the abacus, it’s the right (creative) side of brain in play.

When the calculation is done, the left brain is used again as it processes the final answer from the image “8” to the symbol (number) 8.

A simple math equation is not just a mental exercise, but it’s also an exercise between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

And this interchanging and use of both sides of the brain stimulate the whole brain.

What Mentalmatics™ Is About

Mentalmatics™ is a brain development programme for children 3½ years and above. Adopting the abacus methodology, it provides children the skills to perform mental calculations with ease, speed and accuracy in a fun and collaborative learning environment.

But that’s not all. Mentalmatics™ goes a step further.

Teaches Students How To Apply Skills In Their Daily Maths Homework

Mentalmatics™ not only trains children to perform mental calculations with breakneck speed, it also teaches them how to apply and transfer their mental calculations skills in all aspects of their daily Mathematics work.

This will be especially useful when children are introduced to problem sum questions at school, where they can easily apply their mental calculations to test and check their answers.

What To Expect In A Mentalmatics™ Class

• Kindy programme – for children 3½ years and up

Your child is not required to know how to write numbers. As long as they can hold a pencil, they will learn how to write numbers and perform simple mental calculations within 9 months.

• Foundation programme – for children 4 years and up

Children learn number bonds of 5 and 10 and are introduced to the various number bonds formula. They will also be exposed to multiplication of two single-digit numbers. Songs and music are incorporated into class to make learning fun and interactive, and a reward system is implemented in every class to motive children to learn.

Jean, mother to 5-year-old Keryn (pictured below with her husband and daughter), noticed a big jump in her daughter’s attention span and concentration level just after 2 months of attending the program. Before that, her daughter had a very short attention span and was unable to focus for long.

Photo courtesy of Jean

Apart from this, the mother is also very impressed by her daughter’s mental calculation.

“Keryn is also able to achieve close to 100% accuracy for all her mental sums, with minimum parent involvement and all done within a very short period of fewer than 20 minutes. I am really impressed by Keryn’s progress and she exudes confidence when doing her work.”

The friendly and encouraging teachers at the centre is also another factor why her daughter looks forward to class every week.

• Intermediate programme

Once children have completed the foundation programme, they will be promoted to the intermediate programme where they will easily apply the formula they learn into arithmetic questions.

Children will also be guided on how to fully make use of their mental arithmetic abilities to check and solve Mathematics problem-sums for their respective levels in schools.

Opportunities To Take Part In International Competitions

Students are also given opportunities to participate in national and international competitions to showcase their skills and abilities. Mentalmatics™ conducts regular grading examinations for Abacus Arithmetic, Mental Arithmetic and Aural Mental Arithmetic from the Taiwan National Abacus Association.

This post is brought to you by Mentalmatics.

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