scheduling Singapore Discovering Math [CC] 7

[serendipitous journey]

Hi --

 

I think this is my first thread on this board -- hello! (and thank you for the valuable advice I've been gleaning while Lurking & Occasionally Commenting)

 

A. is just starting Singapore Discovering Math CC 7A (as of today :) ) and I'm wondering if y'all have any pointers for scheduling it? We can wing it by time-per-day, of course, but I really liked the little segmented assignments of the earlier Singapore level. It gave me a good sense of what we should accomplish, and corresponded very well to what A. could do happily (as in, without breaking into tears or getting cranky from frustration/tiredness). Also sometimes my working-time estimates are off because the toddler does something unexpected.

 

any ideas would be appreciated!

[Ali in OR]

We are using the older version, textbook, workbook, and then a review and a test (written by me with some help with the Question Bank book). My dd is 12 and in 7th grade and not a math lover, but is doing fine. The first half of the year we did a section a day of the textbook (most of the time; a couple of longer sections were split into two). After the textbook review (revision) exercises at the end of a chapter, we go on to the workbook: Basic practice 1 day (problems 1-10; sometimes just the left-hand column if it's really long), Further Practice (11-20) the next day, then Challenging Problems next day, then Enrichment problems day after that. Then a review written by me, then a test mostly with current problems but always some previous topics too. At the semester, I realized we would have to school into the summer if we kept this schedule--we started math early in August and still weren't done with the first semester book in January. Second semester I dropped the days doing the workbook challenging and enrichment problems. They're good problems, but I don't think they're essential for this dd. A mathy kid would love them. But I love the workbook basic practice and further practice sections--they really solidify the concepts learned.

 

I'm happy with what we're doing now. I will say this was a pretty big jump from Singapore 6A/6B. I used to teach high school math and a lot of the problems would be challenging for my old high school math students (9th & 10th graders). There were some struggles early on that made me wonder if this would work for dd, but with 3/4 of the year done, I can say dd's capabilities have really grown this year and now she is handling the material well. Don't be afraid to take the algebra chapters more slowly if needed--those skills are so essential. The geometry chapters have been a lot easier for us.

[amsunshine]

We are just finishing up 7B this year and have tried a couple of different things with scheduling. Here's what we seem to have settled into doing now: We generally do one section of the textbook per day, along with the exercises for that section. Sometimes, if the basic practice problem set seems really long, I'll just have dd do the odds of that section. (The basic practice sometimes seems like overkill on the simplest problems; ymmv). However, for further practice and maths at work, I have her do all problems. I have her at least try the Brainworks problems and if she is stumped, we'll go over that together. After we finish a chapter, I will have dd start the workbook problems. Again, if the basic practice seems like too much, I'll have her just do the odds. The rest, I want her to do all problems. This takes 1-3 days, depending on how far she gets each day. Then, I use the review in the textbook for a test. I agree with PP that having the wb problems take so long makes for a longer school year. The problems are really good, though. I'm currently thinking that for next year, I might start having dd do just the odds of all the wb problems initially, and we'll save the evens for periodic review. Not sure about that yet, though.

[serendipitous journey]

Thank you both! This is helping me get a handle on our plans.

 

A. is mathy, so it sounds like we want to do all the workbook problems, but don't want it to take us more than a semester for 7A ... amsunshine, do you have an estimate of how long your daughter spends working on her math each day?

[amsunshine]

I'd say on average, an hour. (This excludes any other math she does, such as Alcumus, ALEKS or Khan Academy). However, sometimes it's only 50 mins -- occasionally, it's more like an hour and a half. It usually depends upon how long the lesson is. Some lessons are longer than others. Oh, and then when the geometry section came along with learning Geometer's Sketchpad -- she spent even more time. But that was more because she was having fun with Sketchpad.