My daughter is only 7 (almost) so I have no experience, but I think it would be awful to limit her to the books that you want her to read. I would hate it if someone came along and told me my books or magazines weren't good enough and I had to read only from their list of approved books. For one thing, while the classics are, well, classic, they're not all that relevant for kids today. The very idea of someone adopting a child just to get a little farm help (as in Anne of Green Gables) is pretty disturbing to people nowadays, although it was common and acceptable back then. I'd assign the books you want her to read and let her choose her own stuff for fun.

This is just the kind of thread I've been wanting to start myself, so thank you! I'm really interested to hear whether the upper levels of PR get around to more outlining and whether there's much focus on summarizing and narrating. DD stinks at that right now. She can't keep the details in her mind long enough to tell me anything of worth - either that or she just doesn't want to summarize.:tongue_smilie:She'll be 7 next month, so that's probably normal for many kids, but I'm not sure how to get her past this hurdle. I don't know if she'll just grow into those abilities or I really need to teach her those skills, but if I need to teach those skills, I would like some hand-holding.

I'm not sure, but I did want to mention that History Odyssey isn't a text. It's more like a schedule of activities and readings. You can choose which books to use with HO, but SOTW and CHOW are both options, I think, so I don't know if HO would be any better if you don't like SOTW.

I don't think it defeats the purpose at all. We started off with learning the phonograms the PR/SWR way, but then I started teaching dd to read using Phonics Pathways. I'm glad we did it that way. It really hasn't been a problem at all. I promise. :001_smile: I mean, teaching her to read has been a problem (she just wasn't interested) but it wasn't because we used PP first or anything. I feel like they're a nice complement in the beginning. We're halfway through PP and we don't really do it much anymore, as I'm not sure we need it. She seems to be reading fairly well, and I'm starting to feel like PR is going to get her over that multi-syllable word hump as well or better than PP would. Hmmm...

Okay, you were right, Flux. Thank you so much! I didn't realize that I didn't even have Adobe on this laptop, so I downloaded it and set it to open in Adobe instead of preview. Now the missing graphics are all there, plus other things I didn't even know were missing. The 1st grade level has a lot of pics I didn't know were there, which is a big plus for dd. Oh, and I have the newest Mac OS, which is Snow Leopard, and it printed with no problem. :)

Oh....oh...AHAHAHAHAHA!:lol:

Oh, now that could be the problem...maybe. I also have a Mac, but I'm not sure about the settings. I'll have to look at all that. It would be weird, because when I open these things there's no image there at all in some spots, and also most of the graphics and things are there - it's just a very few things that are missing. I'll check into that, though. Thanks!

I can't go through it right this minute, but will do so later. It's not my printer - these aren't on pages that are printed out. This is just when I open the pdf on my computer.

Has anyone else noticed several missing graphics in their new Math Mammoth? I've noticed this in more than one level, but I've spent the most time looking at the gr. 1 stuff, so I don't remember what other level(s) I noticed it in. I found an entire row of clock problems missing all the clocks, a few missing number lines, and things like that. I saw in one spot 3 problems with no directions at all, which seems easy enough, except they said something like 87 +______ = ______ so I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be blank, for the child to add whatever they wanted, if they weren't supposed to be blank, or if the child was supposed to add a certain number. Do I just need to email her and tell her the problem, then she fixes it and I get rid of my old file and download a new one?

If she enjoys art, I would suggest either a curriculum for it or a few different art books to cover art appreciation, drawing, and some project ideas, or something like that. I just think art is an important subject for kids who enjoy it, and it's easy to overlook it. Kids who really enjoy art benefit from some instruction, IMO. I'm not artsy myself, but my dd is, so we have a curriculum, plus a book on teaching art to kids, plus a few books on drawing. I wanted to nurture that in her, even though I stink at art. lol If she didn't like it I probably wouldn't worry much about it, so just consider whether or not your daughter likes art before you finalize your plans. :)

I also agree with Hotdrink, and I'm glad to hear that's how it's used in RS. I have RS C and have looked through every lesson, but I didn't remember this method being one of the ways subtraction was first introduced, so I couldn't comment. Editing because I just thought about something. Is there even a logical way to demonstrate that method with manipulatives? I'm sure there is, but can someone explain how it would be done? I'm just curious now. It seems like it wouldn't make sense, since you'd have to be subtracting the minuend from the subtrahend, and how would you show that with manipulatives? My poor, manipulative-deprived math education won't let me picture it. lol

Well, that's true. lol I think her (his?) problem was that she got too confused typing it all out. MY problem is that I think she'd likely get just as confused doing it in class, since she doesn't even have a written record there. Anyway, how can a kid keep up with all of that, if they don't even understand what's happening in the first place? I honestly don't think the teacher even had a good grasp of regrouping, since the other explanation in the rest of the post was the old "go to your neighbor and borrow a one," and this was the best the person could come up with in response to a question about kids who didn't understand regrouping in subtraction. I feel her pain. I didn't really understand it until I started teaching dd, and I was a straight A student throughout most of my school years. <blush> If we were using Everyday Math, I'd probably never have figured it out either. While I completely understand why the teacher might be confused (inadequate math education with teachers that never properly explained it to her/him) I do think it's a travesty that we let people teach math when they don't seem to understand it, using a curriculum that doesn't make up for their lack of understanding. If the curriculum were better, the teacher would understand it. At least, that's been my experience, working through math all over again as an adult (which is absolutely embarrassing, but at least I put the effort in). It's just as bad that we make teachers teach math with a curriculum that makes it so darn confusing and convinces everyone that the kids don't need to understand it because they know 5 different tricks for each type of problem.

Yeah, she (or he) did the last part backwards. She forgot that she subtracted down instead of up. That's what I assumed anyway. I do think it's a cool trick. I just think that a kid ought to be proficient enough at math to know that answer is wrong immediately (once they're 10 or so, I think) because there's no way you could subtract a # with 9 tens from a # with 0 tens and get a number with 0 tens. I didn't even have to do all the math to realize she was wrong, because her answer was impossible. (*I just edited this, because I had originally said this about ones, but there were never zero ones in her answer. Not sure what I had typed that for. I think the whole thing confused me so much I forgot what I was saying. lol) I also agree with those of you who didn't appreciate the "up is negative, down is positive" aspect of it. I HATE that part!

I read this on a teacher's website. It's the teacher's explanation of a subtraction trick taught by Everyday Math. I'm not knocking the teacher for getting the answer wrong - I promise I'm not. My point is that this is just a prime example of why tricks are no match for good conceptual understanding. This one in particular seems extremely cumbersome, and it's really no wonder she got it wrong. I can't really understand why this was considered easier than explaining the concepts behind regrouping. lol Here it is: "The Everyday Math Program has lots of neat ways to teach kids how to subtract, other than the traditional way. They are really good, especially for those students who just can't do the regrouping way without making errors. My favorite method is what I call the Elevator Method. I begin by telling the students my "elevator story." When you go into the hospital to have some surgery, you climb into the elevator and head UP to the surgery floor. You're pretty nervous, so this is a NEGATIVE THING. GOING UP IS NEGATIVE. However, when you get out of the hospital, you climb into the elevator and head DOWN. You're happy that the surgery went well and you are feeling POSITIVE. GOING DOWN IS POSITIVE. Now let's subtract with the problem 807 - 294. Write the problem down with the 294 under the 807. Don't look at individual numbers, but look at place values. We'll start with the hundreds column. We have 8 hundreds and 2 hundreds. 800 - 200 = 600. Write that down under the problem. Put a PLUS in front of it, because we subtracted going DOWN, and GOING DOWN IS POSITIVE. Now look at the tens column. We have 0 tens and 9 tens. 90 - 0 = 90. Write that down under the 600, putting a MINUS in front of it, because we subtracted going UP, and GOING UP IS NEGATIVE. Now look at the ones column. We have 4 ones and 7 ones. 7-4=3. Write that down under the 90, putting a MINUS in front of it, because we subtracted going UP, and GOING UP IS NEGATIVE. Now look at what we wrote down: +600, -90, -3. 600-90=510 (mental math, counting by tens backward if needed). 510-3=507. 507 is the answer. No regrouping necessary, and students can learn to do this really, really quickly! Wow! I hope that helps!" Edit to add that I do think it's a cool trick, but I just don't see how it should be taught in place of good understanding of regrouping. It's a lot to remember, so certainly no easier than just explaining the concept, IMO.

I'm always trying to make things interesting, even if she doesn't particularly like something. However, I try not to take it personally or label it a failure if she doesn't love it.

But that bit about mental math requires the teacher to be proficient at it, and to have a good grasp of a few strategies. Many don't and would therefore be doing their children a great disservice by attempting to teach something they don't really understand or do well. If Horizons 3 is having you use play money to explain carrying and borrowing that's fantastic, but it's 2 years too late, given that the program introduced the algorithm in Horizons 1, without any money, base ten blocks, linking cubes, or even an adequate verbal explanation. (Typing on phone, so please excuse typos and perceived terseness, lol.)

Well, I do own and have read the TM for 1st grade, and that's exactly why I'd recommend that anyone who isn't good at teaching mental math strategies and the concepts behind the algorithms *not* use it as a standalone program. For those who are good at teaching those things and have a solid grasp of it all themselves, Horizons (and anything else) would be fine. For everyone else, it would not, IMO.

If by "concept" you mean the conceptual basis for the written work, then no, it doesn't. It's pretty widely agreed that the TM is nearly useless, although some people like it. I have typed verbatim the 1st grade TM's explanation of regrouping in addition in another thread. It doesn't explain the concept at all. It just says to tell the student to write the one in the next column.

I think it's not so much that it has gaps in teaching any particular subject, but rather that it doesn't cover any mental math at all and doesn't give any explicit instruction in what is happening when you group during addition and subtraction. I imagine it has other conceptual shortcomings, too, but those are the only ones I can say for certain. I would use it alone without worry if you're good at teaching mental math and math concepts on your own. If you aren't, I absolutely would not use it as your only math. HTH some. :)

I would drop the activities and the notebooking. Putting something in a binder isn't a good reason to do it, and if a kid doesn't like projects, why do them?

We've done many chapters like that. After failing to complete many of the projects, I started getting really annoyed with them. They're great and all, but my kid isn't into anything that takes too long to finish, so sometimes we just read. She still loves history and says it's her favorite subject. :)

Not exactly, but we take lessons from a Simply Music teacher. If I played fluently, I would feel fine doing the home program, so I highly recommend it. The thing is that you shouldn't do it if the method is going to bother you, causing to to interfere with it, lol. Our teacher has her master's in music ed and taught traditionally for twenty years before switching to Simply Music, and she says it's really important to follow the method. :)

Or Rightstart, which will give you very explicit instruction in how to use the special abacus they use. :)

I so agree, most especially because everyone would've said that I was someone who wouldn't become an engineer or physicist or whatever. That was BECAUSE they didn't teach me what I needed to know, though!!! If anyone had bothered to explain things to me, math wouldn't have seemed so random and utterly inexplicable to me. By the time I was in 6th grade I already hated it, and although I was perfectly proficient, it made no sense. I made it through high school Geometry and Alg. 2, but I hated it and struggled the whole time. That wouldn't have been the case if I ever knew what it was about. I get so incredibly frustrated when people determine that their 8 or 10yo kids won't ever do anything that involves math and therefore don't need to understand it. You can't set a kid's path in life that early, and if you've never bothered to explain math, perhaps they can't see the beauty in it and they don't understand it, and that's WHY they don't want anything to do with it. (That's all a general 'you' of course.)

Do you have base ten blocks or an abacus? If you have any kind of base ten manipulative, you can make a number with the manipulative, then have him build it with the place value cards and vice versa.