Graphmatica

Graphmatica is one of the best and longest running free math programs available on the internet. You can download it pretty much anywhere. It's a very small program so it won't clog up your computer or cost anything in terms of download time or capacity.

Its purpose is to show you graphs of equations. The equations are entered in the top line above the graphing grid. One thing you need to know is to use the symbol ^ for "raised to the power of". So if you wanted to graph y = x squared as in the picture below, you'd need to type in y = x^2.

Play With It

As with all new programs, the best thing you can do is play with it by entering anything you like into the top line. This is also a good way for your child to explore the program. There are some generally very useful buttons that can help you out of a mess. These are shown in the image to the right.

What Do I Use This For?

This program can graph any set of data in x-y form, it can fit curves to data points, and it can do integration, differentiation, finding tangents and so on. You can also paste in data sets from a spreadsheet such as Excel or Open Office and graph the points from that data. In senior years of mathematics this program has all the functionality you will need to view and manipulate any equation.

Assignments On Graphmatica

To get children started with this program they need to have some basic knowledge of equations and graphing. If your child is not there yet you may be better of starting with a graphing game such as Battleships or an algebra game.

For those with some graphing skills, you can try these assignments. I have used them successfully with kids aged from 13 to 16. The assignments depend on some spreadsheet capabilities and some graphing experience.

Free Download: Graphing Assignment 1

More Information

You can visit the writer's website, but it's not very easy to navigate. To download it, just type "graphmatica download" into a search engine.

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