Problem Solved Tutoring

Students who are taking summer school and are also leaving for Sitka Fine Arts camp in a week…

MY SWEET AND PRECIOUS STUDENT, YOU NEED TO SEE ME.

We need to meet before you leave! You need to let your teacher know you’re going to be gone, and you need to get ahead. If you wait until 24hr before you leave, I won’t be able to heeeeeelp!!!! 😩😩😩

Text me so we can meet up before next Friday, thankyouverymuch.

This past spring was hard emotionally. I don’t usually have seniors (many seniors don’t take a math class), but at least half my students were seniors this year and… while I’m very excited for them and their futures, it’s always hard to see them go.

Every year is a different vibe; this year’s was watching students I’ve had for 3-5 years graduate! I love what I do so much because I get to know my students over multiple years. I love watching them grow and become young adults.

The best part of my job is when a student writes me a thank you note. These mean the world to me.

Thank you to all my class of 2024 students. It’s been such a pleasure participating in your education. Congrats, graduates. Keep in touch and let me know how you’re doing! 🫶

cc: all my trig students




(My students and I did at least 3,965 Ferris wheel problems over the last 6 weeks. The radius of this one is 65ft, it sits on an 8ft platform, and one full rotation takes 60sec. I’m writing this down so I can turn it into a problem later. You’re welcome. 🙃)

If I die, someone needs to keep paying my phone bill because there are at least several dozen students that I need to haunt with my nightly automated, “did you do your homework” text from beyond the grave.

Thank you for following this important directive.

(Update for new students: We are booked solid through the end of the school year. If you want to get on our schedule for next school year, make sure to start pestering me in early August.)

It started with a challenge from her pre-calc teacher. 💪🧮🤓

Britney Gallivan (USA) explains how she came up with the mathematical equations for folding a piece of paper 12 times 🤔

Fractions confuse math students. Tale as old as time.

If you or your student are struggling with fractions, I find having students turning fractions into words helps them better understand how to add and subtract.

I often get parents who ask me to assign their kid homework. If your kid says I don’t assign homework, they are mistaken. I absolutely do: “read something that interests you for 20 minutes, non-stop, uninterrupted, daily.”

But Katelynn! You’re a *math* tutor! What does reading a novel have to do with MATHHHH?!?

Everything. Especially if you have ADHD.

Attention-spans are incredibly important and we have obliterated the average attention-span with mindless scrolling and TikTok.

(I’m not trying to be a boomer “kids these days,” my own attention-span has been affected by this!)

Read a book for 20 minutes a day. Uninterrupted. If you read 60 minutes one day, you still have to read 20 minutes the next day.

If you need suggestions:
-Murderbot series by Martha Wells: a robot made for murdering hacks its governor module. Will it go on a murderous rampage? Who knows. READ THE BOOK.

- Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire: children find doorways to magical lands. Some of these lands are fun and made of candy. Other lands reanimate the dead. At some point the lands spit them back to our world and the children feel lost until the founder of a school created especially for them comes knocking.

- Caraval series by Stephanie Garber: in a magical world, a magician creates an interactive show where one winner comes out on top. That winner can choose whatever they want for their prize. (This is popular with my 7th-10th grade girls because there’s some very mild romance.)

- The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black: 3 sisters are witness to their parents’ murder. The murderer becomes their adopted father who takes them (2 humans and one fairy child) to the fairy realm to raise them. There’s magic and intrigue.

- Deadly Education by Naomi Novak. Great dupe for Harry Potter. Like if you read Harry Potter and thought more kids should die? This is for you.

- Intro the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (aka the aforementioned Seanan McGuire): murderous mermaids. ‘Nuff said.

[image description: part of my book shelf showing books kids are frequently borrowing including some of the books mentioned above.]

“Did you know that if you do your homework, you’re never behind?”

-sage advice from my student, y’all.

When students tell me they won’t use this irl. 😤

Quick update for new followers: I have several public pages. I don’t post publicly from my profile itself very often.

If you’re hoping to follow my travel stories, go here: The Excessively Practical Tourists.

If you need a math tutor or have math questions, go here: Problem Solved Tutoring

If you’re in Anchorage, Alaska and need someone to babysit your golden retriever, go here: The Golden Getaway

[image description: Lagunas de Montebello National Park, Chiapas, Mexico. The photographer, (that’s me), is standing on a bridge or overlook looking down at a lake surrounded by thick and lush green trees of all different types. There are gentle mountains in the background. The sky is blue with no clouds. The lake is also blue, but a slightly greener blue from the sky. The forest is so thick that you can’t see the ground through the trees which go all the way to the edge of the water. There are no boats or anything on the water.]

The SATs are going digital this year! If you have a junior or senior in high school, grab a test prep book (they’re $20 on Amazon) and sign up for an online account.

The biggest change is that the questions will get progressively more difficult as students get questions correct.

-Katelynn

(If you’re wondering why you’re following a random tutoring page, I used to post my travel stories here, but now you can find those over at The Excessively Practical Tourists)

Opinion | The SATs Will Be Different Next Year, and That Could Be a Game-Changer Exams that test speed favor the fastest sprinters, but life is a marathon.