kiwik Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Ds7 has just started year 4 (third grade). His homework this week is to master the +/- 1 facts! After 3 years if he doesn't have instant recall of those it will not be helped by more practice. In reality I think his basic facts are worse than they were 2 years ago unless he is doing something more complicated - word problems, multi digit stuff etc. I thought it was BSD getgin +1 last year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Holy crap! I am sorry. This year my daughter wants to do two sports. We have four kids so one kid in two sports is a LOT. So I said, "You have to get a 4 (an A or "excellent") in math." She asked the teacher what she had to do to get the 4 and he said "pay attention". They are in their third year of addition and subtraction of whole numbers. I bought her Beast Academy to do instead. I do want her to be respectful and quiet but how much about grouping into tens can any normal kid take, really? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Holy crap! I am sorry. This year my daughter wants to do two sports. We have four kids so one kid in two sports is a LOT. So I said, "You have to get a 4 (an A or "excellent") in math." She asked the teacher what she had to do to get the 4 and he said "pay attention". "Gee, thanks Teach! Now I've got it!" :001_rolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 The grading system here seems to be that within the school district, grades are going to be threes unless you are the best in the class (then four), twos if the teacher wants the parent to help more with homework, and ones if the teacher is looking to get outside support. Fair enough. Honestly it's grade school so who cares. So what he meant was, "You could be that number 1 in the class student if you stopped tipping your chair and reading Monster High books during math lessons." The boy who is currently number one actually does pay attention I believe because his parents bribe him quite heavily. Good for them--he is also "bright but not gifted". So I think he gets chocolate or money or some such. However he has a different, less talkative, character. I figure for my daughter what I want is achievement in math, and if what she's lacking is attention to busy work, then we will look for achievement outside of school. There is another boy in the class, and I know his mom. He is also doing fourth grade math, but his math grade is 2 or 3. The grades are to indicate quality of work done in the classroom. But you shouldn't think this is a bad teacher. Actually he's pretty awesome and honest. He will bring the class up to speed then spend a whole extra day or two on literature or science exploration or whatever. He plays them music, invents all kinds of cool games, etc. He's just being honest when he says he can't give a four without attention. He is "secretly" bringing them ahead into multiplication and working with tens of thousands through his incentive system. I mean it's not a secret--just to say, this is his curriculum. Which is nice. Still I'm not having her do extra addition in the ones column. Blech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Got it. Sarcasm rescinded :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Ugh! I hope they zip through the addition facts quickly and move on to something more grade-appropriate. They did those +1, +2, etc. addition facts at the beginning of 2nd grade here. Of course the early ones were too easy even then. Now in 3rd grade, my kids are supposed to practice math facts (single digit) (addition, subtraction, or multiplication) for 10 minutes x 5 days per week, all year long. It is our choice which facts and how we do the drills. I would have done something like this anyway (with Miss A at least), so it doesn't bug me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Honestly, I think that is great. When I taught fifth grade in public school, the kids had to be able to at least pass the 4-minute mastery test for addition test over the 100 basic facts (i.e. addends from 0-10) by the end of September. And again for subtraction facts. By the end of November, a 5-minute test for multiplication facts 0-12 was administered followed by division facts. It is surprising how many kids aren't able to quickly compute these facts which then caused them difficulties as we moved into "higher" mathematical work. Myra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornblower Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'm actually still baffled by this being Year 4 for your ds.When I was a kid, it was a big deal that I started Grade 1 as a 6 yo (Jan birthday). Everyone was 7. No preschool.So many different ways to approach education.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MistyMountain Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'm actually still baffled by this being Year 4 for your ds. When I was a kid, it was a big deal that I started Grade 1 as a 6 yo (Jan birthday). Everyone was 7. No preschool. So many different ways to approach education.... I was thinking that too. To work on plus 1 facts sounds low for 3rd grade but not to work on speed for math facts as a 7 year old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I was thinking that too. To work on plus 1 facts sounds low for 3rd grade but not to work on speed for math facts as a 7 year old. Agreed. My 7 year old (2nd grade) is working on math speed facts. He gets close, but can't quite finish the required page. So we work some more on him Just Knowing. And not having to think for each problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 Here you start school on your fifth birthday at whatever time of year that is. If you start school later in the year (at our school after march 31st for a Jan to Dec year) you stay in year one for mor than a year (my youngest will do 7 terms (quarters)) in year one. My oldest son just made the cut off so he did 3 terms in year one before moving on to year two (still 5). He turns 8 at the end of March. We don't have grades here and no-one is going to penalise or even really know if he doesn't his homework. But this is a kid who is highly gifted and strong in maths. He keeps hoping he will get harder maths and being disappointed. I have limited my after schooling maths to games, living maths books and random interesting stuff but I think this year I may have to do things more seriously. I just think you get faster in maths facts by using them not memorising them. He can nearly finish the required sheet with 100% accuracy but it seems to be the writing the slows him down not the maths. I imagine it will sort itself out this year as he gets a bit older as his writing is about right for s 7 year old boy. Most of the kids in his year are already 8 and a few will turn 9 within days of him turning 8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Hmm, this is going to be even more frustrating for your youngest, unless s/he is not that gifted / mathy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 Not as gifted or mathy but still very gifted. More language oriented at this point. Also a different personality. He only misses the cut of by 5 weeks so it is not impossible that I may be able to get him skipped later (though not that likely unless the principal changes). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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