Maria's Math News, November 2025

Hello again! In this month's newsletter we have:

Math Mammoth news
Is Math Mammoth a spiral or mastery-based curriculum?
North Star math contest (grades K-8)
Homeschool Family Favorites Survey
Mystery number puzzles (grades 1-5)
Just for fun!

1. Math Mammoth news

The traditional THANKGIVING SALE for the digital versions is just around the corner. Stay tuned!

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A note to Australian customers: bookstores in Australia can order Math Mammoth books from Ingram, and INgram will print the books IN Australia (on-demand). This means the shipping charges should not be super high.

When ordering MM books (you should be able to do so at any bookstore, whether in Australia or not), use the ISBN numbers listed here.

2. Is Math Mammoth a spiral or mastery-based curriculum ?

Math Mammoth is mastery-oriented but has some spiral review built in, plus the curriculum comes with various "helps" that provide MORE spiral review.

So, while the overall structure is that each chapter focuses on one major topic, there are several ways that review is provided:

Near the end of each chapter (except chapter 1), there is a Mixed Review lesson, which includes problems for a variety of topics taught previously during that school year
The curriculum provides additional cumulative review worksheets (which are spiral in nature).
The curriculum also comes with a worksheet maker that provides one-page worksheets for most calculation-oriented topics in the curriculum.
The introduction of each chapter lists some online games and resources, which can often be used for review. Many of these are found at Math Mammoth Practice.
We also offer supplemental Skills Review Workbooks that give even more spiral review. I recommend NOT getting those until you're sure your student or child needs extra review.

Something else to keep in mind: the curriculum includes a lot of word problems continually, and those review topics from earlier chapters, because the word problems require the usage of several concepts all at once. In other words, I have not included very many word problems that ONLY focus on the topic of the lesson at hand — most of them cover a "larger area". For example, a word problem found in a multiplication lesson might require both multiplication and addition to solve. Similarly, word problems in the other chapters (such as money, measuring, division, or fractions) will include the usage of multiplication.

Also, all the major concepts (such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, and fractions) get reviewed in a sense because they are used all the time. For example, the child will keep using the multiplication tables when studying division and multi-digit multiplication. Or, they will use various addition and subtraction strategies in word problems about money and measuring and when studying place value. Or, division facts are used in doing long division.

See also this question from the FAQ:

16. How will I know when to review with computer games or worksheets rather than continuing? How will I know when to take a break and review an old concept so it will not be lost? Is this type of review incorporated in the program?

3. North Star math contest

This sounds interesting! The first contest of the year is free — after that there is a small fee. Check it out!

You're supposed to register for the first (free) contest by November 11, so hurry!

I checked the sample questions, and they were fairly easy, but the founder told me that the questions do get more challenging in the subsequent contests, as the year goes by.

$math contests banner$

4. Homeschool Family Favorites Survey

The "Teach Them Diligently" homeschool convention compiles and produces a Homeschool Family Favorites Guide each year.

They use a survey to help them produce this guide.

If you don't mind to take a few minutes, perhaps you could complete the survey and share what curriculum you have been using. It can help spread the word about Math Mammoth!

Homeschool Family Favorites Survey

5. Mystery number puzzles

Someone from a school asked me for MORE mystery number puzzles.

I am wondering...we have a few students at our homeschool hybrid that really LOVE the "Mystery Number" puzzles. Do you, by chance, have a compilation of these kinds of problems in one place! We want to encourage these kiddos to continue solving these mystery number riddles and I was just wondering if there were multiple problems in one place that I could access?

Here is one such puzzle, from Math Mammoth Grade 5-A:

“In my hundred millions place there’s a 7. I only have one ‘2’, and its value is 2,000. My millions digit is double the thousands digit, and the hundreds digit is double the millions digit. The rest are zeros.”

I don't currently have more mystery number puzzles but I found quite a few resources online:

Also, it came to mind, perhaps children/students would like to make some on their own, and let their friend (or even the teacher/parent) solve them? 😀

6. Just for fun!

Thanks for reading! 🙂

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Till next time,
Maria Miller