S5E93: Math Codes with Kohila Sivas

Honey! I'm Homeschooling The Kids

Math Codes

Kohila Sivas is a parent, teacher, Math Interventionist, and a Holistic Success Coach for students and parents. Over the past 22 years, Kohila has developed a simple proven system called MathCodes and she uses this system to help students rapidly transform their math performance as well as shift their mindset, grow their confidence, and outperform their expectations in all areas of their life.

Kohila also works with parents on how to best support their child as a 'Student.' When parents are confident that their child has the tools they need to succeed, they have peace of mind about their child's future.

No child should feel defeated or left behind in their education or life. Every child has the potential to excel in all areas of their studies and life.

It is her mission to help children reach their full potential by showing them how to happily and successfully excel in math and in their performance.

Kohila says that if given the 'RIGHT' environment, ALL students CAN excel!

I asked Kohila to be a part of the show because not only have we been talking a lot about math in home learning this year, but we have also been talking about the fear and anxiety that comes up around the subject. The concern is that if a parent struggled in math at school, then how can they support their child to learn math at home?

She Struggled

Kohila says that she herself struggled in school. But around the age of 13, she started to learn how to hack math, or began "cracking the code". This became a turning point for her. She says math became a therapy for her. As she learned hacks and solved problems her mindset began to shift. She gained confidence and began to feel more in control in other areas of her life as well. This sense of empowerment led Kohila to become an educator and coach. She knew how it felt to go from dis-empowered to empowered and she wants other young people to experience the same. Kohila shared how important it is for parents to be a part of the empowerment process, not only in math, but in life learning. Don't get confused though. This is not about pushing our kids to cram, struggle and win and at all costs.

In This Episode

In this episode Kohila shares the questions that parents can ask so that they can be a better learning support for their kids. We also talk about the reasons why many parents and children continue to experience math anxiety and the ways we can start to shift our mindset.

• Math anxiety and the generation of speed and math drills
• The power of language
• Being a part of the learning process
• Setting your own benchmarks-letting go of comparison
• Don't think math has to be done with a workbook
• Math is all around you- where we can find it in our daily lives
• Building math environments for young children
• Math environments for older children
• How she supports learners through Math Codes

What I love about this episode is that Kohila gives us many practical examples of how we can support math learning at home with our kids and tools we can use in our daily life. I also appreciate that Kohila was able to give her perspective on math learning in school as opposed to math in unschooling and home education and why they differ. I know that if you are a homeschooler or unschooler, you will find value in what Kohila shares.

Resources

If you would like to find out more about the support Kohila provides, check out https://www.mathcodes.com/

Want to learn more about building a love of math? Check out this episode with my mother-in-law, a former homeschool parent and math educator http://imhomeschooling.com/learning-math/

Or if you would like to hear about unschooling math, listen to my interview with Dr. Gina Riley http://imhomeschooling.com/unschooling-with-dr-gina-riley/

Other ways to help support the podcast? Become a patron~ https://www.patreon.com/honeyimhomeschoolingthekids

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