Are you born to be good or bad in math?

In the Western countries, we are convinced that some people are naturally good at math and some are not!

But it’s actually a myth that is transferred from adults to children and is damaging the learning possibilities (1).

It is very interesting, that this myth does not exist in Asian countries like Japan and China. And these countries are becoming worldwide champions in math according to OECD (2).

All babies are really born to love playing with numbers and are eager to learn math. This is the perfect opportunity for parents and teachers to nurture and challenge this appetite.

4 out of 10 people say that they hate math (3). They often hate math because they have had a bad experience in school or their parents claimed that nobody in the family was good at math.

A student gets a bad experience when he/she fails to progress in a math class and may feel left behind. Those students try to avoid math as much as possible in the future. They, unfortunately, miss a big opportunity as math is crucial for future technologies (1).

All people can learn math, it is just about training.

As a parent, you should have a positive attitude about numbers and math. Spend time with your child by playing with numbers or help to do their math homework.
If you, as a parent, did not like math as a kid, there is no need to tell that to your children.
Just tackle math in a different way and you may surprise yourself that math isn’t as bad as you remembered.

Your child will really benefit from learning the numbers and math in a fun, creative and good way.

Let’s start playing with numbers...

The newmero bricks engage and excite children to learn numbers and math through play.

Check where you can buy a set of the newmero bricks in your country

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Further recommended reading:

(1) What’s Math Got to Do With It?, Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education, Stanford University.

(2) www.oecd.org/pisa (performance-mathematics).

(3) Associated Press-America Online (AOL) – news poll.

Newmero bricks are the Winner of Parent's Pick Award

We received one more award! 
The newméro bricks were chosen as one of the Best Educational Products for Elementary Kids (Ages 5-11) in 2018 by Parents' Picks Awards.
We were selected among more than 300 applicants.

We feel like proud parents when their child comes home with a diploma for an achievement.

new packaging + new name

We have three news for you.

No.1 - New packaging

We are proud for the new graphic design of our new packaging that demonstrates the innovative design of our awarded winning newmero bricks.

We use the sides of the packaging to demonstrate what the newmero bricks look like and explaining in details how the bricks can be used in different ways.
On the top side there are "learning benefits" from using the newmero bricks.
 

No. 2 - New name

We have also changed the name to the "newmero bricks"
instead of "The Joy of Numbers".
 

No. 3 - New variations

To spice it up, we have also changed the names of our packaging:
"Retail pack" will be "Large pack" (picture above) and
"Starter pack" will be "Small pack" (picture below).

We hope that you like the new look and the new name.
The new packaging is ready and will be renewed in all the shops in the next months. 

Best regards,
Allan, Christine and Erik

P.S. The manuals will also have the new look (see below).
P.P.S. You can download the new manual from our our website newmero.dk

newmero academy

We have launched the newmero academy website. The purpose is to provide the teachers a new way to demonstrate the newmero bricks from a large smartboard, touch screen or even a projector.

This will be great for the teacher to explain the exercises on the smartboard so the pupils can quickly get started with the newmero bricks.

Furthermore, we are not only explaining the exercises for the teachers but also creating exercises and printouts for the pupils to fill out in class.

Here is a sample from the exercise Friends of 10.
 

The website is still a beta version and will also be translated in different languages.

Please check it out: newmero.net

The idea behind newmero

The idea behind the newmero bricks started with laminated paper number cards, as Allan was playing and teaching the positioning system with his oldest son. 

After some time it became clear that he laminated paper stacks were sliding apart and it was at that time that Allan and Christine got the "AHA!" moment. 

Children should be able to "touch" the numbers in a more intuitive way! Instead of using flat, numbered cards, they chose to build thicker numbered brick which gave a completely different tactile experience.   
The first prototypes were made on a 3D printer at the Science and Medicine Library.
After several attempts, the family decided to rent a 3D printer and start a small production of many more prototypes in the basement over the Christmas holidays in 2014. Christine and Allan regularly tested prototypes with their and others' children aged 3-8 years. They also contacted their children's school math teacher. 
Since the colors and the surface of the newmero bricks were important, the children were involved in the design. 
Everything was taken into consideration, the weight of the bricks, the stacking, the colors, the surface texture ... All of this to create newmero bricks that look appealing. And which children simply can't resist touching and playing with. 

Behind newmero is a "multi cultural" family, consisting of Christine (Icelandic / French) and Allan (Danish / Chinese), which together have 3 boys aged 4, 7 and 9 years.

 
Allan has a Ph.D. and studied mathematics and computer science at Aarhus University in Denmark and Cornell. Christine holds an MBA from Copenhagen Business School.

The brother of Allan, Erik joined the company to take care of the marketing design, photography and other things. Erik studied architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark.

The company is located in the North of Copenhagen, Denmark.                           

In all, it took about a year to develop the newmero bricks and the packaging to be ready to launch in the beginning 2016 at the big Toy fair, Spielwarenmesse in Germany.

To ensure the best quality and safety for children, the newmero bricks and the packaging is produced in Poland, Europe.

Within 10 months, the newmero bricks - The Joy of Numbers - has received 7 prestigious international toy awards which proves that educators and parents love our newmero bricks. Not only do the children learn fast by playing with the newmero bricks but they like doing fun math games.

Our mission is:

To educate young children by improving their mathematics skills through developing innovative, robust and effective products that can be used by anyone, everywhere and anytime.

Today, we mainly have distributors in Europe and we are currently looking for more distributors worldwide.

Newmero was selected to be Dr Toy 100 Best Toy 2016

We are thrilled to tell you that our newmero bricks - The Joy of Numbers was selected to be Dr Toy 100 Best Toy 2016 - an evaluation across all types of toys.

In fact, the newmero bricks are among the Dr Toy 10 Best Educational products.

Dr Toy awards have since 1992 selected and tested toys that are available in the toy market.  

Dr Toy picks out the best one’s based on  high standards for design, durability, quality, safety, price and value.

Dr Toy winners is reserved to be the most outstanding new toys that promote learning, creativity, activity, fun and entertainment, and help to build skills and support social and emotional development in in children.

Visit Dr Toy website to find out more about the criteria for the renowned Dr Toy 100 Best award.

Newmero got the Parents Choice Toy Award!

Our newmero bricks "The Joy of Numbers" have received the "Parents Choice Approved Seal" from Parents Choice.

The Parents Choice Award Approved Seals are given on the basis of the production, entertainment and human values they exemplify. A Parents Choice Approved seal indicates a wholesome product that helps children enjoy developing physical, emotional, social or academic skills.

Parents Choice Foundation, established in 1978 in the USA, is the nation’s oldest nonprofit guide to quality children’s media and toys.

The Parents Choice Award Seals are the Foundation’s internationally recognized and respected icons of quality.

Bøvler dit barn med matematik?

Et betydeligt antal børn sakker bagud på læsning, matematik og sociale færdigheder. Dette er resultatet af en stor nylig dansk undersøgelse, der dækker børn i alderen 0-6 år.

Det chokerende er, at 15% af børnene der starter i skolen ved 6 års alderen er mere end 2 år bagud i forhold til de bedste i klassen (eller 1½ år bag gennemsnittet).

DET BLIVER SVÆRT AT INDHENTE SENERE…

Udfordringen ved denne situation er, at mange andre internationale studier har (gen)bekræftet, at der er en stærk sammenhæng mellem børns tidlige faglige færdigheder og deres resultater senere i skolen.

Faktisk blev matematik udpeget til at være den færdighed, der bedst forudsiger børns senere resultater, efterfulgt af læsning og derefter opmærksomhed/koncentration.

Derimod viste det sig at fx sociale færdigheder, generelt ikke forudsagde noget om senere faglige præstationer.

Med andre ord, talforståelse er en af de vigtigste færdigheder, vi kan give børn i deres tidlige år.

Forældre kan gøre en forskel

Familien spiller den vigtigste rolle i udviklingen af børns tidlige læse- og matematikfærdigheder.

Udvikling af dit barns matematiske færdigheder - uanset om du ønsker at give dit barn et forspring eller hjælpe med at indhente hans/hendes klassekammerater - er faktisk ikke så svært.

Vi har udviklet innovative og prisbelønnede talbrikker, der hjælper dig med at give dit barn forståelse for tal og matematik på en sjov og intuitiv måde.

Se hvordan talbrikkerne bruges på vores videoer eller find den nærmeste forhandler her.

Nyd brikkerne og have det sjovt sammen!

Christine og Allan

Collecting 2 new Toy Awards

We are happy to share some good news with you.

Our newmero bricks "The Joy of Numbers" continue to receive Educational Toy Awards.
The newmero bricks received the Practical Pre-School Award and the Primary Teacher Award.

These renowned institutional Awards are from the UK:

Since the launch this spring, we have received five international educational toy awards (3 Gold + 2 Bronze).

Enjoy the time with your child.

Allan and Christine
 

You can ensure that your child is succeeding

A significant number of children are falling behind on reading, math and social skills. This is the result of a recent Danish study that has been done on children of ages 0-6 years. 
Shockingly, 15% of children entering the school at the age of 6 years, are more than 2 years behind the best ones in class (or 1 ½ year behind the average).

Children are disadvantaged later in school ... 

The challenge about this situation is that numerous other international studies have (re)confirmed that early childhood performance is a strong indicator of later achievements in school. In fact, early math skills were found to have the greatest predictive power, followed by reading and then attention skills. By contrast, for example, social skills were generally insignificant predictors of later academic performance.
In other words, numeracy is one of the most important skills we can give children in the early years.

Parents can make a difference

Families play the most important role in the development of children’s early reading and mathematics skills.

Developing your child’s mathematic skills - whether you want to give him/her a head start or help to close a learning gap - is really not that hard.

We have developed innovative and award-winning number bricks that help you give your child the understanding of numbers in a fun and intuitive way. 

See how the newmero bricks are used on our math games videos or simply go on to test them out for yourselves. Here is the list of the shops in your country.

Enjoy and have fun! 
Christine and Allan

Brain child Award

We are really glad to inform you that the newmero bricks also called "The Joy of Numbers" has won yet another toy award - Brain Child Award 2016 from Tillywig Toy Award.

Each year, the Tillywig Awards Program delivers to consumers, retailers, and the media information on the best children's products, parenting products, and educational toys available in today's marketplace.

Here is the review why we received the Brain Child Award from Tilllywig.

Unlocking the Number code in Tanzania

Tanzanian pupils are now having fun and at the same time unlocking mathematics with the newmero brick.

Newmero has donated several class sets of the newmero bricks to KATEMPRIS, an English Medium Primary School in the Kayanga, Karagwe province in North-Western Tanzania in Africa.

The school was started in 2014 by a Danish/Tanzanian couple to help the local community and to develop and introduce new teaching methodologies in the Tanzanian primary school. The school already has a teacher with a Montessori background to supplement and develop the traditional Tanzanian teaching methodology like a blackboard, pencil and books.

In Tanzania the selection of teaching materials for learning mathematics is very limited, so the children were very happy and curious when newmero bricks were given to them to use in different mathematic classes. After a short introduction, they were touching, turning and counting the different bricks.

In the kindergarten the kids, aged 3-4 years, were playing and counting with the yellow bricks - counting and identifying the different numbers from 1-9. The children are easily engaged when they can touch the bricks, use the counting knobs and see the number they are counting.

After half an hour, they were actually able to add 1+2 or 3+1 by finding the bricks and counting the total counting knobs on the bricks.

The children aged 4-5 were also happy to touch and try to understand the Friends of 10. They quickly understood how the bricks help find the right Friends of 10.

The newmero bricks were used in Standard One and Standard Two (children in the age from 5-8) when basic addition was practiced. The Place Value exercise “Building Houses” were used and made it easy for the children to see, the "Tens" and the "Ones" and understand what the steps in addition is.

The children in Standard Two were practicing addition that requires them to use the "carry" which for a lot of children is difficult to understand. The newmero bricks help a little when they can actually see the carry.

The children were enjoying the bricks, learning mathematics by touching and playing instead of only watching the blackboard and writing in their exercise books.

Approved by lovely children in Nepal

We donated few sets of the newmero bricks to the Shree Kamal Primary school in Nepal which is run by The Human Practice Foundation.

The Human Practice Foundation supports projects aimed at elevating the living standards in indigenous communities in the developing world.  They establish schools in isolated areas and enable poor children to attend school.

The numbers are written differently in Nepali but the children also learn the numbers that we use.

The school use mainly books so it was great for the children to learn mathematic in another way. Often, young children learn best by touching and experimenting.

The newmero bricks are used in classes for 5-7 years old and 8-9 years old pupils. The children started to play with the bricks and stack them up to get used to them. Afterwards, they all learned very fast how the bricks are functioning and how to do the exercises.

The school doesn’t need the internet or other materials to do the exercises.

The numbered bricks are very solid and will last forever.

It makes us happy to see children all over the world learning and enjoying to use “The Joy of Numbers”.

Allan and Christine

2016 Winning Awards

We are extremely proud to announce that the newmero bricks won “TOY OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016 " and also the prestigious “2016 PREFERRED CHOICE AWARD” from the “Creative Child Magazine Awards Program”.

The remaining finalists that receive the “2016 PREFERRED CHOICE AWARD” is based on their ability to exceed expectations for nurturing creativity and education in children.

Creative Child Magazine Award Program is unique in that all products submitted are reviewed by moms and early education professionals. Products are reviewed by many people - the very people who would purchase them.

Only one product per category can win a Toy Top of the Year award from Creative Child.

The newmero bricks, received the “TOY OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016” in Educational Toys category.

We got also the “PREFERRED CHOICE AWARD 2016” in Builder Construction Toys category.

This is really great!

It’s all about touching

Do you remember when your baby was putting everything into its mouth?

It is indeed quite stressful if your baby manages to find small things and within 2 seconds it is in their mouth! Babies use mostly their mouth to explore objects until they are two years old. Your child should then hopefully use its fingers to explore and feel things.

Young children and adults learn best by touching and feeling to understand sometimes complicated things.

When I was young, I felt math was tough to understand.

We only used paper and pen in school so I only could learn mathematics in one way. It was frustrating but I managed to battle through math.

Allan and I felt that there should be many ways of teaching mathematics. We think that you can learn by touching, watching and singing.

Japanese children learn for example the multiplication table by singing. They learn a new song every week until it is imprinted in their head like you probably learned the alphabet song by heart when you were little.

We decided to create plastic bricks so children can play, touch and learn simultaneously.

The numbered bricks have an intuitive design that helps the children to figure things out themselves.

Everything becomes much easier when you can decompose numbers. With the bricks, the number 378 can easily be decomposed into 300, 70 and 8. And 378 is just the total of those.

See our videos on Youtube or Instagram on mathematic games and hands-on exercises your child can do to learn in a fun way.

Have fun!

Allan and Christine

P.S. If you are wondering where to get our bricks you can find here under your country