Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Marija, I'm a mathematician. And today, I'm going to tell you how to explain monomials and polynomials to children. So, there's many different types of polynomials, and the number one mistake that everybody makes is, they consider polynomials to be four more terms. So, if you get that misconception out of the way, to begin with, that would be a good thing. So, we have to know that polynomials are the overarching category. And there are many different types of polynomials. So, we'll start with monomial. And if you can get the kids to understand the prefixes of these words, then they'll never forget what they are. So, if we remember mono, hopefully they know what a monologue is in a play. If they don't, you can probably describe it to them, and it'll stick with them. So, monologue is when there's only one person saying a part all by themselves. So, they should remember the word, the prefix mono with the number one. So, this means just one term, and they can remember that by one person in the play, doing their part by themselves. The next type of binomial, I'm sorry, polynomial, is a binomial. And this one is easy for kids to remember, because they see the prefix Bi, they can think about a bicycle. And they could think about the fact that it has two wheels, so this is two terms. And then, the next type of polynomial, is a trinomial. This one is also easy for them to remember, because Tri, they think of a tricycle, or triangle, they should think of the number three. Because the tricycle has three wheels, and a triangle has three sides, so that has three terms. And then, the most important thing for them to remember, is that all of these are considered polynomials. O.k., so the same way that there are girls students and there are boy students, they're all students. There are monomials, binomials, trinomials, but they're all polynomials. So, there's a little way for you to teach children about monomials and polynomials.