Clickie
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Posts posted by Clickie
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38 minutes ago, BaseballandHockey said:
For me, because the kids I teach are close to finishing their school career, priorities shift. There are things in a typical first or second grade curriculum that we teach because they lay the foundation for upper level skills that my students won't get to before graduation. So, I find that I need to draw from multiple resources, and create things that fill in the gaps.
A premise of Jump is that math should be taught very, very incrementally with models. The series goes up to Grade 8. Rainbow Resources is actually the easiest place to see each grade levels' Table of Contents. For some grades, incl. Grade 8, they show or allow you to download sample pages. I'm interested in the Grade 8 myself because it has linear equations.
https://www.rainbowresource.com/category/13420/JUMP-Math-Assessment-and-Practice-Books.html
The Jump math URL I gave you in my previous post also has samples, and a very large resource of (free) teaching materials (powerpoints, etc.) Just as a note, always buy the American versions of the books (will have a US Flag in the corner, as opposed to the Canadian flag). Canadian standards follow a different scope and sequence entirely.
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1 hour ago, BaseballandHockey said:
I'm sure that @Cake and Piis already doing those things too. But kids with these kind of issues definitely benefit from having it be more explicit and structured.
I would look at the apps I shared. They do a fantastic job of presenting visual models.Obviously, I know all the posters here are super knowledgeable, so at the risk of suggesting something already well-known: Have you thought about JUMP Math? Well known Canadian program that emphasizes mathematical models and understanding. Their Grade 1 Teacher samples has a lot of complementary ideas to the strategies you've been outlining (...I think.... you all are the experts...) My son is in the (Cdn) Grade 5 (we're in the US, the Cdn books were cheaper at the time...) and the first page of his Grade 5 workbook explicitly teaches counting on with diagrams and have the students practicing it for the entire page. In any case, just throwing it out there.....
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17 hours ago, PeterPan said:
Yup, all in on the genetics. Were you thinking there's a connection to the synthesia? Ds does not have an MTHFR defect but dd and I do.
Sorry, my comment was meant to be anecdotal, not diagnostic (no trained subject matter expertise). When I read your post I was struck by how *valuable* your advice was. Something can seem statistically improbable, be on the differential dx, and, in fact, turn out to be involved in a systemic problem. That's the extent of my comment, that your advice is good.
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18 hours ago, PeterPan said:
Do you think he has a developmental vision problem (which would cause the poor visualization) or do you think it's an indication of synesthesia? It might be worth teasing apart. Both could be going on even. But the synesthesia can run in families and if present, yeah it could make things uber glitchy. I never realized till my dd was 20 and started talking about it that she was experiencing synesthesia. I've been realizing I need to investigate it for ds and just haven't gotten around to it.
That is a riot! I can see why this last dc is such a jolt!
I'm trying to ponder in my mind dyscalculia vs. some kind of seizure/damage. Did you say he had CP or some kind of oxygen deprivation? I don't know. It just seems odd to have ALL the other children be crazy ahead and then this one so radically different. Have they done genetics to see if he has a syndrome going on? Even within autism you can have mutations and syndromes.
On the genetics side, I won't highjack this thread, but have you checked which variant of MTHFR your child has? Both my son and husband have the worst form of this problem. Interferes with B6 and B12 uptake (and other issues), which results in behavioral problems, learning issues, as the person's cells don't have the proper vitamins to function properly. Doctor (MD) has said no enriched flours (the laboratory form of folic acid/folate is like a key that jams into your cells' "locks" and doesn't give them a vitamin, it just jams the lock). I can only use organic flour. No commercial flour products, usu. Just thought I'd mention it.
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Just throwing another app out there, both iPad and Android, is Todo Math. It has a lot of number sense, place value mini-games. It's a full pre-K to Grade 2 app. Very fun, well done, we did it for a long time. https://www.todomath.com/curriculum/kinder
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They are wonderful. My son just walked by and immediately recognized them! We haven't played that app in a few years. They are perfect!
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lol, that's funny. My son has won twice, me only the once. But I went back and still did fishing, even though it was no longer advantageous to harvest that way. 🙂 I also liked harvesting apples just for fun in the days after.
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My son and I each got totally addicted to Big Numbers -- it is a lot of fun. It's interesting to hear you say that the skills in Big Numbers can be developed that feed into the skills for Numbers. I would not have known that, thanks.
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Just throwing this out there, as the OP mentioned that workbook pages could be of interest to her child. Critical Thinking Company's Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 1 (numbers 1 to 5) and Beginning 2 (numbers 1 to 15) are robust early math workbooks. They are both big 250-ish pages, colorful, pages aren't too busy. There are sample pages online to look at. My son did every single page of both of these books when he was 3 - 5 years old (I tear the pages out and get him to do about three pages a day. Discard.) I felt it contributed to his early confidence in mathematics.
On the app side, I didn't catch whether or not apps work in your situation, but DragonBox Numbers (iPad, Android) is great for number sense (not DragonBox Big Numbers, that's regrouping). We loved both of those apps, and we did them way later, past the number sense stage https://dragonbox.com/products/numbers
The iPad app "Bugs and Buttons" is a lot of fun, too. Number sense. Anyways, I don't usually post, but thought I might mention the above, in the case that it could be of slight interest.
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Sorry, misread your post wrt the Commonsense Media review, now I see that the review was referring to the students' having to do their assignments in a somewhat boring problem flow. (For some reason I thought it was about assignment avoidance. My bad.) All I can say, is that my son finds it more interesting than Khan Academy's problem flow, which my son detests and won't do. (I like it, and wish he would do KA.) He will do Manga High at the moment because he feels completionist about getting the badges and the questions go up in difficulty which the UI shows (Easy - Medium - Hard - Extreme.
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On 12/18/2019 at 6:58 AM, Paige said:
I looked at Manga High but one of the reviews, maybe Commonsense, said that high school math students should spend most of their time in a separate area of Manga High that seemed to be more like Khan Academy or Alcumus and not the same fun game world. I didn't look into it more after reading that but I'll check it out and see. She may benefit from a preAlgebra practice too so maybe I'll just sign her back up for Prodigy or Manga High but it would be nice if there was a program that could also stretch what we were doing here. I really loved Dreambox for that. She used to move faster online than what her curriculum at home did so when we got to new material she was already familiar with the topics.
I just brought her home again after several years in PS and I feel her basic calculation skills have declined. She said they used calculators in class every day for calculations beginning in 4th grade (when she began PS) and it shows.
I hear what you're saying in terms of finding a fun, online world in which to learn math concepts. I'd say Prodigy is probably best in class in terms of online world: adventures, lots of currencies to earn and spend, a little house to decorate, lots of clothes, pets and buddies, etc. And except for the Tower, the student can complete it all with no membership (i.e. free).
Math-Whizz, which is an online math education, K-8, reviewed by Cathy Duffy, has some sort of online world according to her website review. I signed up for a trial week (as with Manga High, no credit card is provided for the free trial), but my son wouldn't complete the assessment test. He was offended by how repetitive and long the adaptive assessment was, so I gave up on it. But according to the Cathy Duffy review it has something of an online world where you can spend points that you earn. Seems to have some games that address pre-algebra and algebra but likely only to the middle school level, and it sounds like your child is in high school algebra.
In the vein of gamification of higher mathematics (but no online world), I would mention that later in the spring, my plan is to buy the game, Variant: Limits by the developer triseum, which claims to teach the beginnings of Calculus I (finite limits, continuity and infinite limits) in a puzzler game format. My son loves the concept of infinity so I think limits might appeal to him. Seems to be one-time price, not subscription, price okay-ish. I don't see it reviewed except by a few websites that review educational software for institutions.
In terms of Manga High, the Common Sense Media review that you read probably was communicating that students could just click over on the left nav to the Games menu instead of completing their assigned work. So, yes, in a school computer lab, the students probably indulge themselves. I don't really worry about it in a home setting, the games are all math educational towards the middle school and high school level -- negative numbers, middle school - early high school geometry, solving linear equations. But I guess if you thought your child wouldn't voluntarily do their assignments it could be problematic.
In my case, I want my son to learn Grade 6 statistics (basic mean, basic mode, measures of central tendency vs variance) because Prodigy doesn't have any decent simple problems in this area. So I've assigned my son to do Manga High's curriculum problem flows. The problem flows are similar to how Khan Academy or Beast Academy has a series of problems that you answer in a sequence, and then you get a score at the end. Beast Academy does a 3 star system, Khan Acdemy does their mastery points, Manga High has levels of badges. In Khan Academy, as you know, the student watches videos and then when they go through the problem flows, they are quizzed on their understanding of the topic.
In Manga High, from what I've seen and we're really just starting out, there's a "Teach Me" section that instructs the student in the math topic that they are learning about using multiple choice and explanations, and then the "Play" question flow gives simple and elucidating questions, progressing from easy to medium to hard to extreme which is where the student earns badges. This is ideal for me because my son prefers to learn just by answering simple questions and earning badges. He doesn't like hard questions if he doesn't already understand the topic. That being said, he will do the hard questions in Beast Academy, but he gets very frustrated because he's a "completionist" -- which he tells me that in gaming means you have to get 100% (all stars). In contrast, Prodigy, as you know, doesn't provide any instruction, just questions/drilling, although clicking on the the little hint icon often tells you directly how to get the answer ("divide by 16 to convert ounces to pounds", "the area of a triangle is 1/2 b x h").
Alcumus I've only looked at briefly, it seemed very dry, which is out of the question for my son right now, he's not emotionally mature enough to do actual math-math. So can't compare.
BTW, because you mentioned Dragonbox Algebra 12+ in this thread, my son and I went back and re-did the game (We compete on separate ipads). We completed it first a few years ago now, and it definitely has way more content then it did a few years ago. It's serious work with algebraic expressions (solving for x). But no quadratics, etc. Fun!
Sorry, long post.
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Have a look at Mangahigh, it's Grade 2- HS. They are reviewed on Commonsense Media, which is where I learned about them originally. On the Mangahigh website, they'll give you access to some of their games without registering but it is in fact a full curriculum where the parent/teacher has a dashboard to create specific assignments aligned, in our case, to common core math. I would note that I feel their product is unfortunately named. They do have a lot of fun games that represent algebraic concepts. It is pay, unfortunately, but you can get a free one week trial as a homeschooler, and if you like it, get it cheaper through Homeschool Buyer's Coop. I don't represent either company, I just lurk on this board but I thought I'd chime in here because I recently had to find a fun middle school/ high school option for my son because Prodigy is so weak in the upper middle school grades ;)
For background, my son is homeschooled, age-wise Grade 4 but just finishing up Grade 6 math (he's already started Grade 7 topics concurrently), and is approximately Grade 8 / Grade 9 for geometry. We've topped out on Prodigy because it gets way too weak in content once you get into Grade 7/Grade 8. We've switched to Mangahigh recently, he loves the games. He happens to be "grounded" from his computer in the last few days, but he keeps asking to go back on to play Mangahigh. Anyways, hope it helps.
Has anyone used Language Smarts from the Critical Thinking Company?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I don't own Level B (Grade 1). I own Level C (Gr. 2), D (Gr.3), and E (Gr.4 - final book in series). To explain, I had my language arts averse Grade 5 son go through all of Level C (maps to Advanced Grade 2) from Sept. 2020 - Feb 2021. He has a very advanced vocabulary, he just abhors language arts ("I'm going to be a Youtuber!! I'll never have to write a sentence!!") Now we're on Level D.
I can't speak to Level B, but out of curiosity I just looked at the TOC at the Critical Thinking website, and it looks like it's in the same format as the rest of the series: Phonics, parts of sentence (Grade 1 level), antonyms/synonyms/homophones/homographs and lots of Editor in Chief (which is an excellent separate book, btw, we're doing that, too, at the earliest level, Beginning 1).
I can review Level C. Like I mentioned above, Level C maps to advanced Grade 2 in my opinion: Lots of full sentences, paragraphs. Lots of grammar that wouldn't probably typically be done in Grade 2 (simple subject/predicate, adjectives, adverbs). Fact or opinion pages, Fairy Tales vs. Fables. Writing Detective pages (mild critical thinking). Nothing too outrageous, but definitely more thorough than standard Grade 2 workbooks. Pages have color with simplistic non-distracting drawings. Simple concepts on each page that are explained and re-explained. The bad is that the book itself is not spiral, so the front of the book is all phonics, then parts of the sentence, etc. and the pages are not perforated, so you either have to flip around the book to vary the student's assignments, or cut the pages out. I cut them out. We did the entirety of the book, excluding the pure writing pages. My son refuses at this point. (Later....)
Level D (Grade 3) has a lot of the same material as Level C, just a bit more in depth and lots more of Editor in chief pages (which I am in favor of). If there's something specific that you're wondering about, let me know.