Russian Math: Grades 5-6 A (Tuesdays, In-Person)

By now your child has met fractions, percents, motion problems, and basic geometry. This class deepens all of it and adds formal work with variables, properties of operations, and equation solving — using Peterson's Activity Method, the reasoning-first approach behind the world's strongest math programs. Your child is treated as a genuine mathematical thinker, ready for real mathematical argument.

How the classroom actually works

• Every answer is followed by "Why?" — before anything about correctness. Justification matters more than the answer.
• Wrong answer? Your child describes their own steps out loud first. By fifth grade, self-correction has become a fluent habit.
• "What property did you just use?" — after each step, students name the rule (commutative, associative, distributive) that justified it.
• When a letter appears, the student says in words what it represents before manipulating it. "x is the smaller of the two unknown numbers" — said out loud — prevents most algebra errors at this age.
• Self-checking with estimation and inverse operations is the Grade 5 habit that carries them through middle school.

What your child will learn

Multi-digit arithmetic using properties and shortcuts · Large-number place value (millions, billions) · Order of operations with parentheses and brackets · Building and evaluating expressions with variables · Comparing expressions without computing them · Solving equations of the form a·x = b, x ± a = b, and compound equations like (x + 150)·2 = 388 · Word problems modeled with variables · Fractions, percents, and rate–time–distance reasoning · Multi-unit measurement arithmetic.

Class format

Up to 8 students. 90 minutes weekly, in-person at our Bernal Road classroom in South San Jose. Your first evaluation lesson is free.