How should i explain what root is to my student?

It really depends on how your child was taught the basics of math. If she was taught the actual concepts of multiplication, rather than just the process, this should be easy for her to catch on; if she was just taught the process, but not the concepts behind it, it’s going to be a lot harder.

I’m sure there are math teachers on this board who can explain it a whole lot more clearly than I can, but I’ll give it a shot. A root is the number that is multiplied by itself a certain number of times to reach a number. Kids that age will usually just work with square roots, so it’s probably best to start there.

At first, work with numbers whose roots are whole numbers, as these will be products that she’s familiar with from going through her times tables. It will probably be easiest to get out a multiplication chart and work from there. Have her trace through the chart, multiplying 2 x 2, 3 x 3, etc. until she starts to recognize the pattern. Square roots are basically like reverse multiplication – or so my 9yo says 🙂

If she is still having trouble with it, you may want to go to a teacher supply store and get some math manipulative blocks. These are blocks or rods that have different lengths and colors for each number, 1-10. To teach the concept of square roots, go ahead and build out 5 x 5 – five lengths of five built into a square. Each side is five units, and there are 25 units in all. The cool thing about teaching it this way, is tht it actually builds a square, and the length of one side of it is the square root. It’s easy to catch onto, and easy to remember.

For cubed roots, you just build a 3-dimensional model…a cube 🙂

I hope this helps? It’s how my son’s math program taught him, and he’s got a really good understanding of it now.

First,

To help define “root” give them a cup full of popcorn kernels, and on a piece of small square graph paper let them construct perfect squares with x number of kernels. Start with simple ones – 9, 16, etc. They have to make a square out of 9 kernels (the graph paper will help them keep it straight and organized). Don’t waste your money on manipulatives from the teacher store – make our own.

Through trial and error they will begin to construct for themselves that to make a perfect square of 25 kernels, they would need 5 on each side.

You can give them ever increasingly larger numbers.

But keep it to numbers that have whole number square roots. 4, 9, 16, 25, etc. etc. Beyond that is not developmentally appropriate. However, if you have small lego-type cubes, they could try and construct a cube as an additional challenge. See if they can make a bigger cube out of 27, 64, or 125 smaller cubes.

Good Luck

perhaps you can try telling the child that there are certain number that multiply itself would equal to a number. So using teh example of 25 you can ask something like what number times itself would equal to 25.

and the easier way can be using the calculator and using he radical sign.

😀