My in-laws blocked up a door to put bookshelves in place on both sides. Another door that opened had a bookshelf above the doorframe. Lots of possibilities! Also, Thrifty guide medieval arrived and it’s a hit, thanks for the suggestion.

Exceptions for windows? Hey there, I mainly like to talk about math...and occasionally books & foreign languages... I’m trying to learn Welsh, and there is a Welsh translation of the first book, but it is too odd for the local library, alas. Stories are great for learning vocabulary, though that’s off topic, really. Fortunately, the library does have some of the Thrifty guides, so that is not too odd, and already on hold.

This is a continuous problem here too. How many walls can you put bookshelves on, anyway? These look like fun books, I will see if I can find them at the library. This helps a bit, but there are some our library does not carry (e.g., Harry Potter in Welsh).

Yes, it could actually reinforce this issue if they didn’t have a good understanding to start with. That’s great, because it will give him a reason to work hard at this. He’s lucky to have you there teaching him!

Yes, looks like you’re right. I looked them up, and I think you cover up a corner, and then you’re using number bonds. I think this would work better if they understand why, like you said. I am asking my kids to “undo”operations and explain why it works, and their explanations are getting better. Thanks, a video is worth 1005 words, at least!

How do triangle flash cards work? Or, how do you use them?

I looked at the middle grades placement test just now, and pretty near everything that my oldest has covered, she’d be able to do. There didn’t seem to be much with unusual format or funny tricks. We’ve never used Saxon or similar programs.

Do you find it useful for your daughter in addition to Singapore? How do you use it with her? Your approach seems really logical, especially in combination with the Khan videos and test prep opportunities. It sounds like your goal is not a smooth transition to Saxon, but to pass that test, which is quite different. There are some different approaches to math, but I haven’t heard that Saxon is so different in terms of content that another program, with adequate understanding, wouldn’t transfer.

How did you get Khan results? I have not used this at all but was looking at the website. Is it the Course challenge section? His quiz results are quite encouraging, maybe he is actually mathy and just never had the tools to learn effectively. The results will also help to encourage him, I hope.

This sounds like a real challenge! I don’t know if the people involved would be open to this, and my situation has less time pressure, but I have been getting some good progress with my kids recently doing practice with counters to get them to explain all the operations using place value. The counters make it way easier to see what is going on conceptually and are easy & cheap to get. I got this idea from @Not_a_Number, it takes a bit of practice, but I think it would help with the problem you have described in the quote.

Thanks so much, I’ll let you know how it goes!

Something in the single digits or teens range, with a honeycomb shape, please!

I clicked on one knight’s tour, which was differences of 63. I think she would need smaller numbers to be able to do the puzzle, and I’m not sure if she’d get the knight’s tour pattern, but maybe.

Dd7 loves honeycomb puzzles that put numbers in order, but she’s also done addition, subtraction and low number multiplication (up to 6x6). Would any of those work with a honeycomb?

My son will probably take about the same amount of time for level 3. We started in December 2019 and he has 3D still to go. 3C was easier than 3B, that one took ages. I think he’ll be ok with 3D. He doesn’t do the online questions, instead, we supplemented with other activities, but recently I’ve started using manipulatives (place value counters) actively I think this is helping him remember multiplication & division clearly as he starts fractions.

This reminds me of a curious feature of Welsh, only slightly related, that many nouns have the plural form as the base, and the singular is formed by adding a suffix that means “one”.

I did try to learn Russian once upon a time, but didn’t get very far. It was to talk to a girl from Belarus who was over on exchange and living with my cousins.

That’s ok, I don’t really have a use for this info anyway, I was just curious.

Does Russian have a way to communicate a definite article concept, or is the idea not present?

This is really fun, that they all mean the same thing and also that you calculated the number. Does Russian have no articles at all? I’ve been studying Welsh and like (some? maybe all?) other Celtic languages it has no indefinite articles, but does have definite ones.

This is really interesting, and yes, division with remainders does seem to take a detour from the division of model of dividing x items evenly into y groups. DS9 completed that particular chapter in BA recently, and I think he does still need more reinforcement of what division is.

Do you choose questions with no remainders to avoid them initially, and then gradually work into fractions where you can split things into pieces anyway?

An example for me is how it’s often useful when trying to solve a problem to start with a simpler problem of the same type. They will lead the student through that build up from simpler to more complex one question at a time. There is a good example in the sequence chapter in 5C, on Fibonacci sequences. They also frequently make it well worthwhile to simplify problems, so that students should look for those opportunities, and methods are demonstrated by the Beasts. The first few questions in a section are often exploring the properties of a concept. I like all of these things.

We’ve used both BA (books, main) and LoF (supplement). With BA, my oldest started at 3C (now in 5C) and my middle started at 2A (now in 3C). I thought the level 3 books were better than the level 2, on the whole, and there was definitely not enough coverage of place value, which we had to work on more outside of the program. I really like how they approach the micro-skills that @UHP referred to, and the puzzles. It is odd that they don’t do “standard” long division. With LoF, the author tries hard to connect math to Fred’s life, but I didn’t find it had particularly clear explanations of math concepts. It seemed a bit scattered, the author’s firm opinions on some subjects bled though, and the story that connected it all together got kind of dull for my kids. Some kids probably love it, though. Fred’s life is rather odd, so I’m not sure the goal of connecting math to real life is entirely achieved. It is also not particularly puzzle-y, in my opinion. We can get it at our library, maybe that’s an option to have a look at a whole book.

There was very little guidance on how to make up good questions or how to evaluate when it was appropriate to move on, or circle back to older concepts. Introduction of concepts was kind of scattered, and the block schedule meant that you’d introduce a number of new, sometimes only loosely related concepts over a short period of time, then do daily practice of these and other review topics for another 2 months or so while the main lesson focused on science or writing, etc. I now recognize that if you have a good understanding of both the math concepts and *how to teach them*, then making up your own questions could be really effective and completely responsive to the child’s needs and interests. Despite strong math backgrounds, we didn’t have math teaching experience, so we gradually developed a bored, somewhat math-disliking child who was shaky on place value. The math-teaching expertise built into the math curriculum helped a lot to show where the problems were and to build back up.