It’s break time at summer math camp. Five fifth grade girls squeal over a game of UNO, closely clutching their cards to their faces. A competition brews in the foreground. Posters dot the walls behind them, one especially funny, which quotes David, age 10, “When aliens come to Earth they’ll speak math, not English.” --- 

A tutoring spot on the Upper West Side, Mathnasium helps kids get personal help with everything from adding and subtracting to fractions and fractals. But this small yet open space, which sports a wall of exposed brick, doesn’t look like an ordinary math classroom—a chess set and Rubik’s cube sit on one table near some big, bright windows, and a jar of Smarties candy rests temptingly on another.

Mathnasium, part of a national chain of math learning centers, has two locations in Manhattan both owned by married couple Tammy and Marc Goldberg. During the school year, the center offers tutoring via individual lessons and small groups for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It’s focus is two-fold: bringing students up to snuff in their grade level as well as giving extra challenges to number-crunching pros. All the while, the center strives to remove the negative stigma that math learning can have for youngsters, especially those who struggle with numbers.

“Why do kids hate math? Because it doesn't make sense [at first],” says Marc Goldberg. “But we haven't had a kid come in here who couldn't become great at math—they [just] need the right tools. As math starts to make sense, it becomes fun.”

To get started, each student who comes in—there are about 200 students between the Upper East and Upper West Side locations—takes an assessment test to figure out his or her individualized plan. Generally, highly-trained tutors help kids get away from memorizing answers and start building “number sense,” a deeper understanding of how math works. To do this, tutors help connect math with the real world by using tools like dice, money and math games. And the tutors aren’t just math whizzes—they also love working with kids, which is important for making Mathnasium a fun and welcoming hub, Tammy Goldberg says.

Tammy, who studied math education in college, started out teaching high school in New Jersey for two years. Dissatisfied with the classroom atmosphere, she decided to pursue acting and tutored math on the side. She soon discovered that she got more out of tutoring than performing, and sought a way to help kids more than just once a week when worried parents called about a tricky homework assignment.

But the dissatisfaction didn’t stop there. “I felt like when I was doing my own private instruction, I was really just putting Band-Aids on,” explains Tammy. “I wanted to be able to go back and really help the underlying issues.”

After falling in love with Mathnasium’s overall philosophy, Tammy opened a location on the Upper East Side and followed it with an Upper West Side center a little over two years later.

And though her husband, Marc, doesn’t come from a strict mathematics background, he soon fell numerator-over-denominator with the project, too. After going through business school, Marc pursued a rock music career and started a music company with his brother. When Tammy needed help with the business side of Mathnasium, Marc jumped in, and soon he was hooked on helping kids.

“I fell in love with teaching math,” says Marc. “It ended up coming very naturally to me."

When you combine Tammy’s education experience with Marc’s business sense and fold in the couple’s passion for teaching kids math, it’s no wonder the center grew quickly. At about the same time as the second location opened, the duo started another new endeavor—they became parents. Their son Teddy is 19 months old now and can already count to 14. But his parents say they’re not pushing a super early math education—he’s just naturally inclined.

“He’s very studious,” says Tammy with a laugh.

But Mathnasium stresses that even if a child isn’t born counting her fingers and toes, any kid can gain the math skills she needs to succeed in school and feel confident. Marc talks about one girl who he’s been working with for two years. When she started, her parents were ready to pull her out of her competitive elementary school because her math struggles were causing such insecurity. A rock music fan herself, the young girl was paired with Marc and with practice, she made her way to grade level math and beyond.

“One of the beautiful things about this business is that we make such an impact in the lives of not only the students but also their parents,” says Marc. “This was a very difficult thing in her household and the parents just couldn't solve the problem.”

Tammy says parents often gush, “What are you doing? Why does my kid not want to leave?” and ask when they’re going to open a “Reading-nasium.” While that’s not in the works, the couple does plan to open a third Mathnasium location in Tribeca in about two years.

“I don't know what I would do without Mathnasium,” Tammy reflects, “It just fits me like a perfect glove.”

To learn more, visit mathnasium.com.

1. Buy several large, soft cookies (or pieces of pita, for us health nuts!) to have some fun with fractions. Cutting up food is a great way to teach your child about “parts of a whole.” Ask your child to show you how to:

• Share 3 cookies equally between the two of you. Then try it with 5 cookies.

• Share 1 cookie so that 3 people will get a fair or equal share.

• Share 2 cookies evenly among 3 people.

• Share 3 cookies evenly among 4 people.

  2. Help your children set up their room like a store by placing prices on different items. Let them be the store owner and you be the customer. Have them ring up your purchases, which requires them to add up the prices of the items and subtract to make change for you. Children should learn how to make change from all denominations of coins and bills. Ask questions like:

• If I want to buy a book that costs 50 cents, and all I have is 39 cents, how much more do I need?

• If I buy a pencil that costs 18 cents, how much change will I get from a quarter?

• If I buy a box of crayons that costs $1.46, how much change will I get from $5.00?