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  • - Hello, everyone, welcome to the Khan Academy

  • Daily Homeroom livestream.

  • For those of y'all who are new to this.

  • This is our way of staying connected

  • in times of school closures.

  • Obviously Khan Academy is a not for profit

  • with a mission of providing a free world class education

  • for anyone, anywhere.

  • Over the last many years, we've been building resources

  • in math, the sciences, English and language arts,

  • the social sciences, to help you feel supported,

  • whether you're a student

  • who's learning outside of the classroom,

  • or whether you're a teacher trying to support students

  • in the classroom, differentiating instruction, et cetera.

  • But when we saw the school closures happen,

  • we realized that we have a fairly unique role to play,

  • to help keep people learning to support

  • all of you as parents, as teachers and as students.

  • And as part of that,

  • beyond just putting the resources out

  • that we've already had.

  • And the calendars, the schedules, the learning plans,

  • we've been running parent and teacher webinars.

  • We also wanted to do this

  • as just a way to answer questions,

  • feel connected and bring on some really interesting guests

  • who can give us more perspective on

  • how do we keep learning and the world as a whole.

  • And we have a really great guest

  • I'm going to introduce in a little bit.

  • I do like to remind everyone,

  • Khan Academy is a not for profit,

  • we only can exist through philanthropic donations

  • from folks like yourself,

  • I want to give a special shout out to several corporations

  • that have stepped up in the last few weeks

  • to to help our COVID response.

  • We were already running at a deficit before this.

  • And now we're seeing our traffic at about two to three ex

  • of what it typically is

  • and we're trying to actually accelerate

  • a lot of programs and do new things.

  • So special thanks to Bank of America, AT&T, Google.org,

  • Fastly and Novartis for making that happen.

  • With that, I'm excited to introduce our guest,

  • Laura Overdeck.

  • Laura, there's a lot of different,

  • many interesting things to talk about with Laura, today.

  • One of is, you know I have to thank Laura

  • she's a longtime supporter of Khan Academy.

  • She makes a lot of what we're able to do possible

  • hopefully all of you are able to enjoy.

  • And Laura, I don't know if I'm hearing,

  • I'm hearing like my own voice through...

  • Oh, it's fine I'll just power through it.

  • - I'm hearing an echo too, but...

  • - Okay, anything we can do to, on the echo side.

  • - You know what, let me, I'm gonna try one thing.

  • - That got rid of the echo.

  • - Is that a little better?

  • - That's a lot better.

  • It's still going on a little bit in the background,

  • but we'll power through this.

  • Anyway, as I was introducing Laura.

  • Laura has been a longtime supporter of Khan Academy,

  • through the Overdeck Family Foundation

  • we definitely sent her positive karma

  • for making all of this possible.

  • But also to this conversation.

  • Laura is the founder of Bedtime Math and Fun Factor.

  • And Bedtime Math and Fun Factor are very relevant

  • even before COVID crisis.

  • But I think in this crisis when a lot of kids

  • are learning from home and parents

  • are trying to figure out what are enriching activities

  • to do with them that are that more relevant.

  • So Laura, thanks for joining us.

  • I hope you and your family are doing all right

  • in these crazy times.

  • Tell us all a little bit about Bedtime Math

  • and now this new project, Fun Factor.

  • - Sure, so we...

  • Bedtime Math I started about eight years ago,

  • it really is truly one of those things

  • that started in the garage,

  • except it was in the bedroom,

  • although not that kind of bedroom, a kid's bedroom.

  • But basically, my husband and I

  • would read our kids a bedtime story

  • and then almost without thinking about it,

  • we'd give them a fun math problem

  • just something we'd make up on the fly.

  • And when we started sharing these

  • with other people, it grew really fast.

  • And I think that's because people

  • were very hungry for math to be fun.

  • And also to be real life for kids.

  • You know, a lot of times we take math

  • and try to make it fun.

  • At Bedtime Math, we find the thing

  • that's already fun for kids,

  • and then find the math in it

  • and that's a very different way of thinking about it.

  • Once we started that,

  • we have an app, we have a website,

  • the math problem goes out every day.

  • We also started an after school math club

  • called Crazy Eights, with hands on games.

  • And what's happened with this crisis

  • is we're actually now adapting those games

  • for teachers to use with their students from afar.

  • And that's what Fun Factor is.

  • That's our new initiative.

  • - And make that a little more tangible.

  • What age groups is this appropriate for?

  • I guess, you could say skill levels and what is it like?

  • Are these the standard math problems

  • that you might see as part of your curriculum?

  • Are they that plus other things?

  • - Yeah, so it really started off because

  • it was parallel with reading a bedtime story.

  • It's really for those ages

  • when you would read a book to kids.

  • So we say ages two to nine

  • two sounds aggressive, but it's not.

  • It's just that's our mentality

  • that people are like, "Ooh, math is tedious and dry."

  • It's not math is wonderful.

  • And you can totally start with a two year old,

  • which is what we did with our kids.

  • And the math problems are pretty different in spirit

  • from what you would find in a textbook,

  • because of course, we can talk about whatever we want.

  • We write them about pillow forts, ninjas, drafts,

  • chocolate chips, just stuff that kids love.

  • And then there will be three or four levels of questions

  • about what we just talked about.

  • And those range from like a Pre-K level question.

  • That might be, you know, giraffes or brown,

  • find three brown things in the room,

  • all the way up to third graders

  • doing multiplication and logic problems.

  • - I have to give a testimonial

  • I've been using you obviously

  • through you I learned about Bedtime Math

  • near the beginning, you know,

  • many many years ago and my oldest who's now 11.

  • I was using it with him when he was five, six, seven

  • years old and he definitely enjoyed it.

  • And I, you know, then used it with my daughter

  • and I'm using it now with my youngest,

  • so a personal testimonial for that.

  • You know, taking it one step above that,

  • you know, you are, given all of your focus and energy

  • and education generally and on Bedtime Math

  • and Crazy Eights and Fun Factor.

  • You know, I think you have a good lens

  • on how do parents deal with this type of situation,

  • especially with younger kids.

  • A lot of parents are worried

  • that maybe my kids aren't learning enough.

  • What advice do you have?

  • I know you have, your kids are a little bit older now.

  • But what advice do you have

  • for parents trying to deal with this scenario?

  • - So I would say this crisis has really,

  • I think shone a bright light on a lot of things

  • with education and we should

  • absolutely take advantage of it.

  • So one thing is that with kids now home

  • and liberated from their classroom,

  • you can see your child, where they're stuck