One of the best ways to motivate little kids to learn math (n = 2 admittedly) is to present it as secrets for cheating.
Actually, the best way of looking at this material is also the most ancient. The Babylonian approach (c. 1600 BC) was never improved on.
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The Babylonians asked how to find two numbers if you know their sum and their product. Their product they saw as the area of a rectangle.
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And their sum is half the perimeter of that same rectangle. But this is geometrically rather unnatural. The Babylonians found a better way.
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