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Hello from Houston - 4th grade math (supplemental)


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Hello all,

 

My name is Nan, I live in Houston, TX; I have twins in 4th grade going to katy ISD and I am looking to find a math program that can go hand in hand with what is being taught in school. My goal is to stick to the pace that is implemented by the school and just give them more practice at home. I want to keep the practice time to 20 mins - to maintain a good balance between school work, this practice and their extra curricular activities. 

 

Would love to hear words of advice, wisdom on what is working for you all. Also - anybody from the same ISD or even TX who has been there done that?

 

Thanks all. 

 

-Nan

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Hi Nan,

           I have a 4th grader this year, we are in Frisco, TX. I use a combination of Khan Academy (website), Beast Academy books and the printouts from the MEP site for daily math practice. My ds doesnt do more than 20 mins of math daily. We also read a lot of 'Math' centric books from the library such as the Sir Cumference books. Hope that helps!

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Thanks so much friscomom! I will look into the sites you have mentioned.  I looked at beast academt 4a, b, c and d yesterday.. do you think they flow parallel to the school curriculum. Thanks once again for your helpful response.

 

-Nandita

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Thanks so much friscomom! I will look into the sites you have mentioned.  I looked at beast academt 4a, b, c and d yesterday.. do you think they flow parallel to the school curriculum. Thanks once again for your helpful response.

 

-Nandita

 

No, Beast Academy will not parallel the school curriculum. It will far surpass the levels of complexity of any school math program and deal with topics not typically encountered in elementary math programs.

 

Great program. Just not a "more of the same" approach.

 

Bill

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I use dreambox and mammoth math. Dream box works out well on school nights. I do not worry about the curriculum being paralell to school. I would rather them be exposed to several different ways of approaching math.

 

We are implementing common core in our schools and last year there was one lesson where the teacher sent us all a message about not worrying about their test scores, most of the class did bad.... my daughter got a perfect score. She had learned the concept using 3 different curriculums I use at home (I have one other that I use at home but not sure I recommend it for kids older than 7Years old... math seeds)

 

-Prachi

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Thanks everyone! I will look into all the sites mentioned above.  My twins had a math test at school last Friday on place values to the trillions (Expanded form notation etc) and they struggled with it. Right now, I am not sure if they are in a place where I can expose them to complex stuff ; I feel like their basic foundation needs to strengthened first which in turn I am hoping will increase their confidence in the subject.  They have a test every Friday and hence the reason I want to go parallel with the school. Thanks once again - appreciate all the different suggestions and views  :)

 

-Nan

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Make sure that their base in mental math is strong -- when I pulled my twins from public school, my daughter knew the algorithms, but didn't understand why she was doing them -- she struggled with place value and number sense.  By spending a few weeks on mental math, she was able to conceptualize numbers and their relative sizes so much better.  Now she prefers to solve most problems mentally (though we definitely haven't gotten into the trillions, and she is in fourth grade!).  We used Singapore Math to shore up her weaknesses and Beast Academy to push her out of her comfort zone. Its been a great combination.  

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Hey there! I live in Katy ISD, but homeschool, and my kids are younger than yours.  Do you know what math they are using in the classroom? It might make it easier to recommend things that would complement that if you knew the name of the program they were using. If it were me, though, I don't think I would try to parallel what they were doing in class if I were afterschooling math. I would probably try to shore up basics with fact practice, etc, and then go deeper with something like Beast Academy. I'm planning to try Beast next year with my will-be 3rd graders. I think it looks awesome! We are currently using Singapore Primary Math. 

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I have a 4th grader too but I live in NJ. We used Dreambox few years back and he liked it a lot. Dreambox is fun but does not cover full year math curriculum. However, we switched to IXL this year as I got good discount. I work full time so my son stays at after care till I pick him up at 6. Besides homework and light reading, it's hard for me to give him extra work to do in aftercare. Normally we do IXL when he does not have evening activity or weekend. Teacher give them math homework everyday. He does it in aftercare by himself and I check at night. If I find he makes more than 2-3 mistakes in homework on certain topic, I will reteach the topic and then have him to do practice on respective topic in IXL on the weekend. IXL goes with grade level and common core topics. it should fit your need.

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I go to thrift stores and yard sales and buy all the textbooks/workbooks I see that are at least two years ahead.   Then I tear out pages that I want my son to work on or stay fresh on.  Since he is in 5th grade, fractions, rations proportions are the big areas.  He does around 10 problems each session 3 or 4 times per week.  

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If your kids aren't fluent in their addition and multiplication facts, you could do xtramath.org, which describes itself as a "math vitamin" to be taken every day- about 7 minutes per day.  

 

I rarely diss tips here, but xtramath and IXL were horrible for my children. They just guessed. It would only work for the most video-game savvy child who already registered total points in a meaningful way. My kids were responding to every light and screen, regardless of the information the screen meant to convey.

 

This is just a caveat. They work for some kids, as does Dreambox.

 

I personally think that there is something to learning math in a more spatio-temporally rich environment. Color is secondary: space is primary. You only get three dimensions on the screen. I'd sooner do Lego kits than any online math program.

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I rarely diss tips here, but xtramath and IXL were horrible for my children. They just guessed. It would only work for the most video-game savvy child who already registered total points in a meaningful way. My kids were responding to every light and screen, regardless of the information the screen meant to convey.

 

This is just a caveat. They work for some kids, as does Dreambox.

 

I personally think that there is something to learning math in a more spatio-temporally rich environment. Color is secondary: space is primary. You only get three dimensions on the screen. I'd sooner do Lego kits than any online math program.

 

IXL and xtramath are good for drills and extra practice, not teaching. I ensure my son understand the concept before he does his math homework everyday. He normally gets the concept without problem but very careless when apply it. In this case, IXL comes handy. We use tablet version and now you can use color pen function to mark on the screen and even write the calculation steps on screen. When my son gets frustrated because he cannot get to 100 due to careless mistakes, I will step in to help. Sometimes I does one or two questions for him and have him to check/correct my answer before hitting submit. Sometimes I answer the question wrong on purpose to see if he can catch it. That works well for him.

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