Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Being Patient at School

As our math curriculum, we use and love Math U See. Maya and Elena are generally in the same book, as are Isaac and Chloe. But they're not always developmentally on the same page, so I try to discern who is ready for what. For instance, a couple months ago, Maya and Elena were both finishing up the addition/subtraction book. Maya had really struggled with the borrowing and carrying, so I slowed way down with her, having her do a lesson a couple of times before moving on. We actually did those lessons through three times before I felt confident that she really had it.
Elena, on the other hand, had started multiplying on her own, while still in the adding/subtracting book. She started figuring out that three 3s was 9, and four 3s was 12, etc. So, she sailed right into the multiplication book and it has been smooth sailing for her through the first 6 lessons so far.
Since, I didn't see any developmental cues like that with Maya, we have stayed with adding and subtracting and will until I do see those cues. I see no point in moving on when I know she isn't really ready.
So, Maya plays a lot of math games. And we read a lot of fun math stories from our local, well-loved library. Have you seen these:




These are awesome! I love them all! Check them out and tell me what you think.
























7 comments:

heartchild said...

Great book suggestions! I am going to look for them at our library.

HopiQ said...

Thank you for the math book recommendations. I just ordered them all from the library! They look like a lot of fun. I need to remember to be patient with my son who needs extra time to process.

Donna said...

I was going through a lot of that with our older adopted son(8 1/2). I was slowing him down and doing lots of review, but he became discouraged. I went ahead and let him work on the multiplication and division, and he is really getting it. I am still tring to figure out why he is so slow with + and -, maybe a control thing for him?

Kidcraze said...

We love the Tang books at our house, too. I was so excited the first time I discovered them.

Tina in IN said...

I want to comment that I think this is a good approach, but also can have some faults to it. I homeschool my children and when I end up stuck on math, I call my dad. Why? Well aside from being and electrical engineer and very structully minded, he used to be a math teacher, grades 6-12 in a one building school. My boys tend to get stuck more often than others and my sons get very tired and discouraged by reviews. My oldest never seemed to be able to memorize his multiplication tables. But could figure out how to get to the answer. So we moved on, to division and struggled but got it. That was two years ago. Today he says to me "what is 84-36? I have been stuck on this all morning!" I almost laughed because I had to remind him to "borrow" which is what his brother is working on. He now, in 6th grade, has his multiplication memorized, but forgot to borrow. Silly boy. My point was as I read this I thought about how my dad tells me sometimes it is best to go on to the next step, and it helps build the steps before. Another thing is can she teach it to any other children? Teaching a subject always causes you to learn it better. Those are just things my dad would suggest and in the long run it does all seem to be learned and absorbed, but at their rate and in their way. Some kids learn multiplication and and division better than add and subract. That is just the way they are programmed. That said, this is all a suggestion of my thoughts, i think review and games are great, sometimes you could do that as you move on. :) Just don't let her get discouraged, expecially if she can hear her sister who is doing the same level going on ahead of her. (but don't stop the sister either) I think you do a great job, just wanted to throw this out there. :)

Ginger said...

My dh taught math for awhile and they didn't teach him anything about developmental readiness. (You know, because they move on whether the kid is ready or not.) With my adoptees, I have noticed it is no benefit to move on when they're not developmentally ready to move on. It just makes it worse. Staying on level until they show signs of being developmentally ready has worked very well for us. Check out Dr. Raymond Moore's research in books like "Better Late Than Early". His methods have saved me so much frustration.

debhmom3 said...

Funny you mention this now. I have just started doing the same thing. I am not going to let math be a source of frustration and tears. That's just silly. So I too have gotten a bunch of math games and stories and we are loving it! I think mental math is so important and so many times overlooked. The games really help with that. We bought a fun board game called "sum swamp" that my kids love.