About MathMammoth.com

Hello! My name is Maria Miller and I am the author of MathMammoth.com as well as of the books sold here.

I started MathMammoth.com website in 2006, with the aim of having a separate shopping site for my math ebooks.

Previously these books have been sold on another website of mine, HomeschoolMath.net, which has been online since February 2003.

But as the number of books kept increasing, there was a need to have a separate site. I also wanted it to be easily remembered (that's how the mammoth came into the picture) and not directly associated with the word 'homeschool', because I'm writing math books that are very helpful for teachers and parents alike.

About me

In a nutshell, I am a math teacher turned housewife and homeschooler.

I have a master's degree in mathematics with the teacher educational studies, and minors in physics and statistics. I did my studies in university of Joensuu, in Finland. I enjoyed studying math there, and have greatly benefited from the experiences I gained when working at the faculty in a summer job and later as a lecturer.

I love teaching math (and teaching in general). My teaching experience is varied (though not very extensive since I've been staying at home), ranging from university to vocational school and classroom teaching and private tutoring.

After I married, I was tutoring various homeschooled kids, and noticed the struggles those moms had in teaching math - they really didn't seem to have a good grasp of how math is best taught; how to show what different things are based on. I saw their materials and they looked to me as inferior as to what I had seen growing up or while studying mathematics. I even noted some blatant errors in them.

Those experiences prompted me to start writing books especially for homeschoolers. I wanted the books do the same teaching as I personally would do so that I could in a sense 'spread out' to help thousands instead of just a few.

The initial work in making several math ebooks took me almost a year. I started in 2002, and got them online in 2003 after I had HomeschoolMath.net online. My initial books concentrated on addition, subtraction, place value, multiplication, and division.

I've kept working on those books ever since. They've gone through many improvements, a format change from .exe to .pdf, and many many new books have been added.

Ever since I started, I've kept up building HomeschoolMath.net as a website full of free math resources, especially aimed to help homeschoolers. During the years, I've written articles, reviews of other people's products, built pages for almost all commercial homeschool math curricula where site visitors leave reviews, written worksheet generators, started and kept up with a blog and then a newsletter.

I've been learning a lot over the years and still am. I keep tweaking the books whenever I find something to be changed. However, lately the focus is clearly shifted to writing more and more new materials - thus I eventually, in 2007, got started with writing a complete math curriculum (my Light Blue Series).

In 2009, I started also making free math teaching videos, posted at Math Mammoth YouTube channel.

I still love teaching math — now through my books and videos. I am grateful for the feedback I've received that the books are helping children and parents.

The aim of my books is first and foremost to explain math in very simple terms, yet rigorously, concentrating on understanding of concepts. I use picture exercises a lot because they are sort of equivalent to playing with manipulatives and help children understand how math works. After those, come more abstract exercises.

The worktexts (the Blue Series and the LightBlue Series) are perfect for homeschoolers since they are self-teaching: no separate teacher's manual is needed. All the explanations are in the text. And that also makes them super easy to use for the teacher. Like someone commented, the book does the teaching.

And that has been my aim: I imagine teaching a concept on blackboard and try to put that to the pages of the book. So in essence it's me teaching through the book.

Then I have also created Golden Series worksheet collections that do not contain any explanations. These math sheet collections are perfect for teachers to give their students as homework. The main material for these has been originally made for SpiderSmart Learning Centers. They offer an effective online Reading & Writing Program, connecting students anywhere to teachers who provide individual feedback on students' writings.

Maria Miller is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Music

Music has always been dear to me. I played classical piano for 13 years when growing up, and sang in the music school's choir, etc.

I know everyone has their own favorite music and bands, and our musical tastes vary a lot. I have always liked classical music a lot because that's what I got used to. But I also love just about any kind of energetic happy melodic music.

Here I want to thank 24K Gold Music Shows for the inspiration they've given me over the years. It's a fantastic showband; their shows are full of eye-candy with splendid costumes, lots of dancers, and above all the music is very energetic. There's a lot of talent in that group. They play mainly rock'n'roll and other hit songs from the past (mostly 50s and 60s).

If you like oldies music, below you can listen to one of my favorites, Cara Mia song.

Visit the 24K Gold Music Shows YouTube Channel to see more videos.