Singapore Math Homeschool Teachers Guide

[HomeSchool4]

Is this a helpful resource?

Thank you in advance

[Rachel]

Yes.

[Lucy the Valiant]

YES, particularly 3A / 3B onward. My own math education was solid, but "memorize-the-algorithm" based, and the explanations in the SM teacher's guide were extremely helpful to me in presenting the concepts "the Singapore way" to my own children. 

 

I would imagine if you (personally) learned math in that style, they would (possibly) be less helpful.

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

Yes definitely. I regret skipping it for grade 1.

 

It's helpful to read it before you start the lesson too 😕😆

[Sneezyone]

Yep. I didn't use it as much with my older but am using it muuuch more with my younger. I find things are clicking just that much faster for him because of it. I didn't, for ex., emphasize the rules of divisibility with DD and can see, now, how it would have helped her with factors. With DS, I stopped and spent a whole week on it.

[Jane Elliot]

Yes, it's very helpful. Most parents need some teacher training when it comes to teaching the Singapore way. A nice alternative to buying the home instructor guides is a subscription to www.singaporemathlive.com, which costs only slightly more and might be more user friendly in some situations, depending on the format you prefer. I love it.

[ThursdayNext]

Yes! I would say it's essential, and possibly skip the textbook instead.

[fralala]

My thinking has changed on this. It helped me present the lessons when I was totally inexperienced and lacked confidence. What it failed to do was to encourage me to create a creative, flexible, enthusiastic approach to math learning with my kids. Adhering strictly to another person's ideas about how concepts should be conveyed also, I might note, created a very negative atmosphere around math in our house. As a tool, it contains one set of suggestions about teaching math conceptually that goes along with the Singapore curriculum. But it is only one person's set of ideas and, if you have the time, Google searching the title of each chapter will turn up a multitude of exciting ideas, too.

 

Liping Ma talks in Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics about how math teachers in China pretty much ignore teacher's guides and instead look at the problems, think about what they're trying to teach, and actually reflect about how to best present them to kids. Perhaps the Home Instructor's Guides helped me get to the point where I feel comfortable doing that, but they could be so much better if they were as concerned with conveying a love and appreciation of mathematical discovery and insight as they are with acquainting parents with conceptual math.

[Crimson Wife]

Yes, and one of the reasons Singapore Discovering Math was unsuccessful for me was that there was no HIG for it. All I had for DM was a solutions guide without any explanations. A lot of the time DD and I would be sitting there with the solutions guide trying to understand and we would wind up having to wait for DH to get home from work so he could explain it to us

 

 

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[PinkyandtheBrains.]

 

Yes you want the HiG, it is the meat of Singapore Math.

[Petrichor]

Yes. Some people say you don't need it for 1st or 2nd grade, but I disagree. 

 

If you don't want to spend as much money on buying all of the books, look for them used. You can easily find a set of 6 books for the year for under $60 (textbooks, workbooks, HIGs)

[Lucy the Valiant]

My thinking has changed on this. It helped me present the lessons when I was totally inexperienced and lacked confidence. What it failed to do was to encourage me to create a creative, flexible, enthusiastic approach to math learning with my kids. Adhering strictly to another person's ideas about how concepts should be conveyed also, I might note, created a very negative atmosphere around math in our house. As a tool, it contains one set of suggestions about teaching math conceptually that goes along with the Singapore curriculum. But it is only one person's set of ideas and, if you have the time, Google searching the title of each chapter will turn up a multitude of exciting ideas, too.

 

Liping Ma talks in Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics about how math teachers in China pretty much ignore teacher's guides and instead look at the problems, think about what they're trying to teach, and actually reflect about how to best present them to kids. Perhaps the Home Instructor's Guides helped me get to the point where I feel comfortable doing that, but they could be so much better if they were as concerned with conveying a love and appreciation of mathematical discovery and insight as they are with acquainting parents with conceptual math.

 

Liping Ma's book was also instrumental in my personal math journey, helping me move from math-averse to being confident and willing to teach my own children math. (That's not a goal of her book, as far as I know.) I read it when our oldest was small, and she is now in high school. :) 

[El...]

I wish I'd ordered the teachers' guide this year, because then I wouldn't have to do all the problems myself in order to check Dd's work!  I had them for the first three grades, but didn't use them.  We also did Miquon, and I think that program set me free to teach the math directly to my kid, her way.  Now, though, the questions are complex enough, and she's doing them more independently, so I could really use the answer sheet.  Maybe I could find it used.... off to Amazon.  :)

[EKS]

Yes it is helpful--it tells you how to teach the "Singapore way."  

 

That said, there are other ways to learn to teach the Singapore way.  For example, reading through the book Elementary Mathematics for Teachers and doing the exercises and then applying what you've learned to your teaching is probably better than using the HIG in an open and go fashion because it gives you a sense of where you're going (and practice with working problems in the Singapore way).