Ds6 can't stand current math topic - 2 questions

[naturalmom]

He's not wanted to do math for over 3 weeks now, because we're in the weights section of Singapore Intensive Practice 3A. After all the pages on length, he's tired of measurements. Finally this morning I skipped ahead to graphs. Much more fun.

 

I'm not sure how to handle it - should I just skip the section, and see how he does on the end of the year review?

 

Also, I'm not sure what to do after 3B. Up to now, we go over a topic in the textbook, and then do the Intensive Practice. I could continue this, but the pages have a lot more problems on them, and at 6 he really doesn't like that.

 

I could get the workbooks, which space problems out a bit better. But I'm afraid he'd get really tired of having to drill things he understands right away.

 

I could just do the textbook, since there are Practices & Reviews in there. But then he'd pick up considerable speed, and I'm not sure if it's good to let him fly through the topics. The IP gives him some challenge, slows him down, and gives more depth to the topics.

 

Any advice about either issue? (skipping weight & capacity for now, and whether to continue with IP)

 

Thanks!

[Old Dominion Heather]

I wouldn't worry about skipping weights and capacity for now, but I would come back to it at the end of the book. As far as his speed, have you considered adding in the Challenging word problems book? My guys do Singapore, but they do the whole thing, or we would be whipping through those books.

 

One of my reasons for requiring the review of topics they know is that, while they are advanced, they still need to build some endurance for working for a longer period of time. They enjoy the workbook stuff because it is quick, the IP book is probably their least favorite format, but we do it anyway.

[lighthouseacademy]

I got the workbooks for 4A and B. I have noticed a jump in the the level of work required from 3 to 4 and I am glad I did. So many of the concepts in 4 are pretty new that the workbooks are helping me to teach them. There is a lot of geometry with notations I didn't see until I was in high school geometry class. There is also a lot of work on fractions- changing denominators, adding, subtracting, multiplying, etc. Fractions play so much into higher level math that I think the repetition is important.

[MSNative]

If he's really just burned out, there's nothing wrong with skipping the chapter and coming back to it at a later date. Maybe now is the time to try to spice things up in the math department.

 

Have you tried adding some online math work to supplement? We do MUS and supplement with Singapore and Saxon. My kids get sick of doing problems on the pages, but will do an online math drill or game with no fussing. MUS has a simple online drill that my kids actually like. A quick search for online math games brings up tons of results - from simple drill to more difficult work.

 

As far as weights and measures - what about going hands on. Build a birdhouse or just a box. Something that he can get his hands on and start to see why on earth all this measuring is important. Weights - my kids will do anything to get to play with our balance scale. They'd much rather figure out grams and ounces that way. Graphing - box of jelly beans. We graphed on paper and then turned our data into all sorts of different graphs with excel. Seaworld also has some teacher guides that have real world, interesting questions that captured and held my kids' attention. They are free from their site.

 

 

 

Good luck!

[AnneC]

We skipped a chapter of Singapore 2, the money section. I was going to go back and do it later but I've decided that now we will just do the money section in Singapore 3 instead. I don't think that we will miss any key concepts by doing that.

 

It's not really advice but we are just moving through the texts and supplementing as necessary with the workbooks. My kids get bored if we do too many problems on the same topic.

[Amber in AUS]

I would not be worried about skipping it at all. Take him grocery shopping and have him weigh the apples, or check the weight of meat in the butchers department. Get him in the kitchen and have him weigh ingredients for cooking. You can also look at metric conversions. Weight is something that is so easy to pick up using real life stuff that i would not bat an eye at skipping it.

[naturalmom]

and I appreciate all the advice so much!

 

I think I will skip the rest of it (I need permission for things sometimes!)- he did about half the pages, and clearly understands it. Just doesn't like it at all.

 

I do have Challenging Word Problems 3...we just haven't been doing them. I will pull that out and work on those some more. I think what was hard about them was having to follow their method. I would make him do it their way for about half of them, and he could do it his way for the other half. But there was (and is) so much resistance to following any kind of algorithm, that I think I took the easy route and stuck with IP. He doesn't like to be taught. He wants to already know it. And if he doesn't already know it, and gets it wrong, he becomes an emotional wreck. I'm still learning how to work through these kinds of issues!

 

But before we tackle the word problems, we will do some of the Seaworld activities - thanks, Jcodevilla! I printed just a few things from the K-3 math teacher's guide, and I think he'll enjoy them!

 

I still don't know what to do about 4A...maybe just buy the IP and CWP, but plan to do just part of each section? Maybe start the "every other problem" method that is so often necessary for high school math!

[lighthouseacademy]

He wants to already know it. And if he doesn't already know it, and gets it wrong, he becomes an emotional wreck.

 

One time when I had an event where my son melted over not already knowing something and I was trying to explain how that is why we are doing school- to learn the things we don't know and it wasn't sinking in... I took him to the white board and I told him, "This is a test. If you don't get it right, you will get 0%" (he HATES getting anything less than 100% and thinks it reflects badly on him). So I proceeded to write out a math problem that was FAR FAR above his abilities (think algebra for a K). He looked at me and laughed. He thought was so ridiculous that I would even suggest that he needed to solve it- because he hadn't yet been taught to do that type of operation...

It was a big eye opener to him that maybe, just maybe he didn't need to know it before he learned it. We have referred back that experience on occasion. I then put a HUGE RED 0% on the board and he further laughed because he realized that if I hadn't taught it to him, he couldn't be expected to know it and the 0% was rather ridiculous.

[KarenNC]

We've skipped around in topics every year. It has helped to break up the basic operations sections with some of the more fun ones that come in the B books (we are in 3B now). I did usually save the reviews and go back at the end of the year and do any of those we had not yet done, since they usually include material that we may or may not have worked on at the point they occur in the books.

 

As to the meltdowns, that was a much bigger factor in our lives when my daughter was 6 than now that she's 8. She is by no means a math whiz (her area of acceleration is reading/spelling/vocabulary, doing her grade level in Singapore), but is rather a perfectionist, as was/am I. It would drive her nuts that she couldn't see from the beginning exactly how to complete the problem. She would have a doozy of a meltdown at times---head under the blanket, crying that she was stupid and hated math, etc, seemingly unable to even pick up a pencil and copy down the problem, much less do any step toward solving it. It took a lot of "first do this" "now do this" "now that" and "yes, you do have to finish this page, but that's all". Ten minutes later it was "I'm pretty good at math!" :banghead: I think a lot of it simply had to do with the disparity between her emotional development and academic development (and a bit of the challenge of asynchronous academic development ---*everything* should be as easy as reading, in her mind).

 

This has gotten incredibly better over the last two years. We still have our moments, but she's much more amenable to instruction. I looked on those meltdown sessions as primarily about teaching her strategies to cope with frustration and persevere when it was more difficult than I really did about teaching her the math.

 

Something we will also do is to just condense a section if she gets it. In 3B, we did the entire section on volume in one sitting, with her giving me answers orally for most of it. Now, time, on the other hand, required supplemental materials last year.