Skipping around in math

[SunshineMom]

My Kdd is skipping around in math. She is no longer interested in her Singapore workbook (actually 1B, I need to change my signature). I bought a bingo fractions game for 10& up yesterday. Well today she played it with me, no problem. She totally understood the concepts of fractions (it was easy), she is close to getting the concepts of multiplication (Singapore has introduced it) and on her own spouts out what she knows with addition/subtraction. My question: How long do I let her "make her own math?" I feel compelled to get back to the workbook. What should I do? I really do not want to squash her liking of math but I want to make sure we are covering math requirements.

[lighthouseacademy]

I have allowed my son some leeway to skip in math lately. We switched to Singapore and he whizzed through 2B in a week. We have been working on 3A and 3B intensive practice for a month and we will be moving into the Challenging word problems. I expect him to be done by January. The way I let him skip is I teach the concepts and then he literally skips around the entire set of 3A and 3B. It is not uncommon for him to do 2 problems on a page and then skip 10 pages and then do 4 problems and then go back 15 pages and do 10 more. If he has all the concepts at once, he is able to do that, and, in truth, there aren't many things that are "new" after the basic operations that won't allow skipping once he knows them. I hope that helps in some way. I don't think my system for this child is perfected yet, but it is working ok for now. I am going to check out the Horizon book though because I found Singapore 3 seriously lacking in the instruction of fractions and common denominators etc. My son understands fractions, but could use more help on the higher levels of adding fractions with different denominators, finding common denominators, etc. That is so important for algebra and later. He does know a lot of it in his head, but doesn't know how he got there so he needs to learn that.

[Donna]

I needed to find her instructional level. We had done Singapore 1A a few months prior whenever she was in the mood to learn and she began to resist Singapore wanting to do "big girl math" like her brothers (meaning no pictures or cartoons, LOL). So, I brought out the Saxon books I used with them and she began skipping through them.

 

I would follow the general guidlines in the Saxon book but if she was supposed to learn what 1/2 and 1/4 were and she intuitively understood what every other fraction meant and started adding fractions, I would let her go and give her whatever knowledge she needed. When she came to me one morning telling me the concept of multiplication, I started giving her multiplication facts. I used the books for problems when she wanted them and to give me ideas of what she needed to know so we didn't miss money, measuring, graphing, etc... Occassionally I would make up my own problem sheets for her.

 

She skipped through Saxon 1, 2, and nearly the 1st half of 3 last year. We took most of the summer off to travel (usually I school all year) and I finally found that she needed to finish Saxon 3 at a little slower pace (meaning a lesson or two a day rather than skipping 5-10) because I want her to be solid in multiplication/division facts before breezing on but we still go off on tangents when she feels the need and she will be heading into Saxon 54 by January. She understands math concepts immediately but still wanted to do math on her fingers or figured out a multiplication fact she didn't know by finding one she did and working up to it but she is doing much better with the mental math now.

 

So, I would say, as long as your dd is having fun and learning, there is really no need to go by the book. Just look at the book yourself to make sure she doesn't miss anything. You may just not have found her instructional level yet so, why bore her and make math tedious by doing problems she already understands.

[Mandy in TN]

My question: How long do I let her "make her own math?" I feel compelled to get back to the workbook. What should I do? I really do not want to squash her liking of math but I want to make sure we are covering math requirements.

 

I don't know that there is one correct answer to this question. The best I can offer is to tell what we have done.

Little ds has worked through MUS Alpha and Singapore PM 1 and 2. I let him skip around and do whatever he wanted and go pretty much as fast as he wanted. He also played a lot with dice, dominos, pattern blocks, and calculators.

However, like Donna's daughter he was begging for "big boy" math and actually carrying Saxon54 around the house. So, now that he is using Saxon (a spiral text) rather than Singapore (a basal text) I am having him go through the lessons in order and do all the problems for each lesson instead of skipping around the book. He just started this a few weeks ago.

I began just doing 2 lessons each week. The first day I would do the mental math, introduce the lesson, and he would do the practice problems. The second day he would do the problem set. This did not last long- maybe two weeks. Then, he did three lessons a week. Last week he did four lessons and today he will finish the fourth lesson (lesson 16) of this week. I have no plans to do Saxon on the day that he goes to his enrichment program, but he has flipped through the book and realizes that multiplication begins at lesson 33. He feels pretty strongly that he should have been allowed to start there. LOL So, he may be determined to move faster.

So- until we reached what is basically middle school math I let him skip around and maybe I would still let him skip around if he used a basal text. To allow him some freedom to pick and choose, we bought the Kumon Grade 3 Addition and Subtraction Workbook and the Kumon Grade 3 Division Workbook. Which brings me to Kumon and facts drill. Even though I let him skip around at home, ds does math at the Kumon center and that is very, very linear.

HTH-

Mandy

[AnneC]

We use Singapore too. My kids are just working through it quickly. My boys are doing 2B and they aren't learning much that is new, just consolidating what they already know. With dd I'm moving between 3A and 3B to get a bit of variety. I feel that I need to cover the basics for my own peace of mind, I watched my sister struggle with math for years because she missed some of the basics. We skip most of the workbook if I see that they understand the concept. My boys love math so they spend a lot of their free time figuring out new concepts. We have also introduced them to some Algebra and Calculus basic concepts to keep them interested. My dd doesn't like math (for all that she is good at it) so she just does her math lesson and then never thinks about it.

 

One of the things I really like about homeschooling is that I can see when the kids get a concept and when they to spend some more time on it. Also, if we cover things too quickly now and it becomes apparent later we can always come back and do some review.

[Storm Bay]

I am going to check out the Horizon book though because I found Singapore 3 seriously lacking in the instruction of fractions and common denominators etc. My son understands fractions, but could use more help on the higher levels of adding fractions with different denominators, finding common denominators, etc. That is so important for algebra and later. He does know a lot of it in his head, but doesn't know how he got there so he needs to learn that.

 

Actually, Singapore does take care of this well before Algebra. I think it's in Singapore 5 (or was it 4? Dd is in 6A right now.) I don't remember for sure, because she was doing MUS first, and all I remember is that she did decimals in one while focusing on all the fraction stuff in the other, and then when she moved on to the following levels, the situation was reversed.

 

Personally, I think waiting on all that stuff for fractions works well. I didn't see any major advantage with my older dd learning it earlier with her math method, especially for this particular dc who is 10. However, I think it's important to ensure strong understanding of fractions before Algebra. Myrtle just made a math post yesterday or today about what she saw lacking in SM before Algebra, and it's covered in the beginning of NEM which comes next.