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The school maths curriculum is designed so that formal progression successively builds solid foundations for the next set of concepts, but it’s difficult for young students to see the point of learning some of these abstract concepts and rules. He might be more stimulated by a problem/puzzle based approach.

Here are some websites with free puzzles with solutions:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/
https://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/pages/free-math-puzzles
https://mathforlove.com/puzzles/

I’ve previewed them for you. I’m not sure where he is at in his learning journey, so they cover a range of different levels of understanding for different areas of maths. Hope he enjoys some of them.


We gave our son an iPad at age 5, with unlimited access to the internet and he looked everything up himself. I understand many parents are concerned by the potential of device addiction, but we decided the benefits outweighed the risks. By his teens, our son had grown bored of games and used his internet access to learn how to play the keyboard and guitar and compose music (at age 12, he won several eisteddfod first prizes playing his own arrangements, against AMEB grade 5 & 6 music students) and optimised his techniques for a range of track & field events for which he competed at state sports level, so with these activities (daily music practice & training), he spent less time on electronic devices than any of his peers.

It is awesome that your son taught himself English by playing Minecraft.

My son, now 20, has also always been a self directed learner, who dives deeply if something catches his interest. He was similarly motivated by Minecraft to improve his reading. His father played Minecraft and a range of other games with him and they discussed game theory and optimisation strategies (genetic inheritance is a strong determinant of intelligence, so most gifted gifts have gifted parents). By the time DS was in his teens, he had lost interest in games and was much more focused on academics, music and sports, but from his early interests, I would suggest that some useful activities for 8-12 yr olds include Rubiks puzzles (my son participated in all of the different Rubik’s events, including 2x2x2 to 6x6x6, pyraminx, single handed solves, blindfold solves and the Ubik), chess and robotic programming.

I cultivated an early love of maths by introducing the concept of other counting systems - Roman numerals, binary, other number bases. My son found and really enjoyed watching ‘Numberphile’ YouTube videos, which I highly recommend. They introduce concepts such as irrational numbers, infinite sets, etc, in interesting and challenging ways that stimulated my son to learn more about these concepts himself. By the time he reached high school, he had informally covered most of the school math syllabus up to 10th grade and was accelerated by the maths HoD, so he formally finished 10th grade in the middle of 7th grade. He is now an engineering student, in his third year of an elite honours course, and is proficient across software & FPGA programming as well as circuit design. Since he learnt everything creatively and was not tied to formal conventions, but works as an editor of commercial maths & physics resources, he is both innovative and rigorously thorough. He recently received feedback from his course convenor that his designs are the best they have ever seen, so I would advise supporting self directed exploration with occasional guidance towards activities and resources which provide interesting challenges and stimuli.

Online learning means using the internet to attend classes, watch lessons, and do homework. It happens through platforms like Zoom, Google Classroom, or other apps. Many schools used it during covid so students could keep learning safely at home. You might lọok at Italian Brainrot Clicker for entertaining during online classes.

Thank you very much for your response and for your very useful input and observations.

Since we last spoke, we have had our son (now 8 years old) assessed by a private psychiatrist (most psychiatric evaluations of children in Denmark are done through the public system), and he has been diagnosed with ADHD. While this may not exactly be a cause for celebration, it is nonetheless extremely helpful, as it provides—at least in my view—a credible and comprehensive explanation for his behavior. This includes, for example, why he has absolutely no interest in traditional school lessons, textbooks, or homework. On the other hand—something that is now very clear to us, with the diagnosis in hand—is that he is extremely driven by his interests and can be incredibly engaged and eager to learn when it comes to activities that capture his attention. For example, Minecraft :-) where, in almost no time at all, he has immersed himself in the entire universe and learned an astonishing amount of English without any adult involvement.

It is fairly clear to me that he is a boy who, to a significant extent, needs to be able to pursue his own interests, and it’s unlikely that he will ever love his lessons in primary school. But hopefully, as he progresses further in the education system, he will have more opportunities to participate in a program that truly engages him.

Have any of your children, at the age of 6–9, been totally obsessed with Minecraft, and then later developed more “academic” interests?