School Year 2010-2011: Math

Thursday terribly early in the morning Governess

I changed things up this year by doing math first thing instead of doing it at individual-lesson time. It was eating up all the individual time, and with two boys doing math, I found managing both at one time was more efficient and effective. Plus, they are fresh. I am fresh. And if nothing else gets done, they’ve done their math.

Yes, two boys doing math. Jaeger is showing signs of having a head for math. I had already made the decision to go ahead and get the Math-U-See Primer for him, but was confirmed in that decision by hearing him count to 100 with Hans. Hans went from 49 to 60, and Jaeger stopped him, “No! 49, 50, because see — 4, 5!” Whoa! He gets it. I don’t know how, but he does.

I tried just amending and tweaking and going slow with Alpha for Kindergarten with Hans, but I wasn’t happy with how that worked out. The Primer is basically the first 1/3 of Alpha drawn out, which is why I didn’t buy it for Hans, but at this point I think I need the done-for-me option in that area. Jaeger is breezing through the lessons right now, sometimes doing 2 a week, because it’s number recognition and counting and shapes, all of which he knows. But he is very, very pleased to be doing math. I think it’s helping him feel like he’s doing “real” school, too. And he is. I would call what he’s doing now half Kindergarten half 1st grade, especially since he’s a part of all the reading aloud times.

Hans is still working through Alpha, and actually still in review mode. I want him to be strong in his addition facts before we move on to subtraction, and it’s still not quite clicking. So, I’m holding back and being patient. I watched these YouTube videos by the author of Math-U-See and felt confirmed that going slow and getting solid was the right thing to do.

Math-U-See is very conducive to going at the pace of the student. Hence, Jaeger can breeze through the first part of Primer and Hans can spend half a year in 8 lessons and it all works. Once it either gets hammered by repetition into his brain or it clicks, Hans will start breezing through lessons, too, I’m sure. Actually, I can’t quite tell if we’re waiting for things to click or if Hans just needs to snap up and pay attention. I have let him in on the secret, on the way to get to watch the next movie-lesson: Do a drill sheet within 10 minutes with no errors for two days in a row. That has helped with his motivation and application. Now he knows what he’s working toward.

I like Math-U-See for several reasons:

1) It is heavily manipulatives based.
2) It has a DVD with a teacher teaching the lessons so I know how to teach the material (and the kids love the chance to watch a “movie”).
3) It emphasizes understanding why and how math operations work, not just rote drill.
4) It begins with and bases everything off of place value, which was a shift in my thinking, but it makes total sense.
5) It isn’t a “graded” approach (it’s “alpha” not “first grade”; it’s where to begin, but there’s no pressure in the book to finish in a year or to begin when they are a certain age) and its goal is mastery before moving on, not just moving through lessons at a lesson-a-day or lesson-a-week clip. It presents the lesson, and then you spend as much time as you need until the student has mastered it. That might be one day and that might be….a month. Or two.

My guess is we’ll stay with Math-U-See through elementary and then move into something different for middle school. We’ll see. I feel like math is a little more intuitive to me after watching the lessons and helping the boys do their manipulatives stuff. I really like the way Steve Demme explains things.

Besides these regular math lessons, I also got Calculadder drill. My mom used it. I hated it. I shall now inflict it upon my children. Gotta love how that works. We do a drill sheet once or twice a week. Both boys are still on level 1: writing numerals. Sigh. No backwards 2s or 3s! I was even able to get a used copy from Exodus. And, shall I point out that it is non-consumable? :) I don’t know why that pleases me so much, but it does.