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Hello, I am from India. I find the mathoverflow amazing.

I have a question: Are there any good quality video lectures on school math topics?

There are a lot of high quality lectures available on college and university level math topics, but I didn't find any such series of lectures available for school level math.

I am interested in following types of video lectures:

  1. Typically the lectures you may expect from a "math circle"
  2. The ones that help the students understand the concepts like math-problems, solutions, rigor, theory (proofs, definitions, etc) that are crucial for a beginner to make a head-start in math
  3. The ones that give a beginner a bird's eye view of the world of mathematics and how the elementary school math fits into it

No doubt, there are some math circles in USA: Wikipedia: Math circles in North America

Other resources: http://onlinemathcircle.com/tag/lecture/

These sites do have notes, problem archives but they don't have videos of their lectures. Video lectures are needed, they do make a positive impact on young children.

Do I make a request here to the people who are part of such circles, to post the videos of their lectures for the rest of the world to benefit from? If you already know of such videos posted online please provide links.

Also, may I request the great mathematicians that may read this post, to speak with the young children, teach them a topic or two of your interest, from your perspective, via a video posted on youtube or somewhere else on the internet?

You may take any math topic that you think can be taught to a child.

In short what I dream is we start a modern version of the "Math circles for the entire world". We have the technology like computers and internet at our disposal.

Mere mortals like me can contribute by adding subtitles to (or dubbing in our languages) these lectures.

Repetition notwithstanding, here I wish to remind us all about a great tradition of the Russia and eastern Europe: The Math Circles, wherein some of the brightest of the math professionals and professors used to go out, reach and teach school children even the ones the age of 6-8 year old.

I conclude by giving a link to the short story of the great Gábor Szegő teaching the young von Neumann. http://www.siam.org/news/news.php?id=39

Thanks and regards,

-Damodar Kulkarni

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    $\begingroup$ The University of Texas has online video of a math circle they host for junior high school and high school students. I don't havea link at hand but you could google it. $\endgroup$ Apr 18, 2012 at 21:42

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Vi Hart's videos are excellent to get children of all ages thinking and playing with mathematical ideas. They also link back to many topics of school mathematics.

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The University of Texas hosts two program geared toward middle and high school students called Saturday Morning Math Group and Math Circle. They have videos here. http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/smmg/video.html (Wayback Machine)

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You might want to check out the Khan Academy. They have a lot of videos on all levels of school mathematics.

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  • $\begingroup$ And the Khan Academy web site now includes Vi Hart's videos: khanacademy.org/math/vi-hart . $\endgroup$ May 16, 2012 at 13:01
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    $\begingroup$ Though I would draw a distinction between Vi's videos, which are great for inspiring mathematical thought, and the more traditional Khan videos, which are good if you need to learn about a particular technique, but probably don't bring a lot of excitement. $\endgroup$ May 16, 2012 at 13:05
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AoPS has a nice series of videos based on their books. You may want to check those at https://artofproblemsolving.com/videos

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This may not be exactly what you seek, but it hits your 3rd class, "a bird's eye view of the world of mathematics": The Museum of Mathematics Encounters videos, available at this link.
          
(source: momath.org)

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  • $\begingroup$ Hello, I went through some of the videos on the sites mentioned, they are quite good. But I will need some time to make further comments. Thanks a lot. -Damodar $\endgroup$ Jun 6, 2012 at 22:40
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I love this question! One place to start, if you are interested in learning about Math Circles in the United States, is going to the homepage of the National Association of Math Circles: https://www.mathcircles.org/. I will just point out that there are a variety of Math Circles. Some of them are intended to prepare students for competitions such as the International Mathematical Olympiad. This is the traditional kind of math circle. Others are intended to enhance the academic experience of students and show them that mathematics is beautiful and fun.

Here are some videos about actual Math Circle sessions (that are in the website I mentioned above): http://www.mathcircles.org/videos.

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These videos are fun: http://www.etudes.ru/en/ Although they do not explain what the proof is but they show some wonderful mathmatical ideas: Arnold's rouble problem, polyhedra, etc... Lots of interesting mechanisms too. I have seen children watch these movies, they get really excited.

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You can get math circles video lectures for school children from YouTube website. You can get many videos for it.

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