Myrtle
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Posts posted by Myrtle
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Why do some labs require a bunsen burner and some don't ? How can I tell if I can use a simple hot plate instead?:001_huh:
Thanks a million!
Holly
Some of the labs in my program require an object to be stuck directly into flame, say a magnesium ribbon.
I would also think that putting a glass beaker directly on an electric burner could crack the glass?
To some extent our science program isn't just about teaching science itself, but preparing the student for the lab skills needed to use lab equipment that they will be encountering in college. I've got bunsen burner anxiety.
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Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions?
What books are necessary & why?
Which books are optional & why?
Textbook
Workbook
Intensive Practice
Teachers Guide
Home Instructors Guide
Challenging Word Problems
What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend?
I am wanting to add this to Horizons Math 1. My child did Horizons Math K very easily.
It has been recommended that I begin with level 1A. Am I safe to assume that starting with 1A would give us a good foundation in Singapore's approach to math?
Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon?
Is adding this going to give us more of a challenge or just more of the same?
Thanks for your time!
The Challenging Word Problems will be a challenge!
The textbook will guide you as to how to think about the problem itself. After presenting a lesson it will then give some basic practice problems. The workbook is only problems, but the problems they present in an exercise set tend to be more varied than the problems in the text.
The text also has an exercise set consisting of review problems from prior topics, the workbook does not. The workbook, on the other hand, has practice tests.
Intensive Practice is not part of the official Singapore program used in the schools. It's a supplement that Singapore parents would buy at their equivalent of WalMart. It has some very "good" problems in it, they require more clever thinking than the regular Singapore text, but sometimes some of the problems seem like they aren't as well thought out as the regular text. Because of these super-stumpers I sometimes refer to Intensive Pratice as "honors" Singapore.
Challenging Word Problems is awesome. It's a book entirely full of word problems based on the topic. The first grade level is not very good, but the second grade level is. At the beginning of each topic they will demonstrate the use of the Singapore bar model and you can copy and tweak that when solving word problems. This is where you learn bar models from.
I don't use the "guides" so I can't say what's in those. I was able to follow the instruction to the children in the textbook well enough to teach it without help. (I did need to go to outside help once in the sixth grade though)
The bare bones of this program are: textbook, workbook
The next thing I would get would be Challenging Word problems.
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I can't open the 2000 thread at all. I keep getting this message:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 108648 bytes) in /mnt/www/welltrainedmind/forums/showthread.php on line 1231
:confused:
That has happened to me in that thread when I am NOT looking at the thread in linear mode. It's too big to be downloaded in hybrid or threaded mode, I think.
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I purchased a nice sized Cast Iron skillet at a garage sale. It was dirty and I thought I could clean it easily enough. Unfortunately, it hasn't been nearly as easy as I expected. I scrubbed with 3 mini-SOS pads and there is still a sticky residue on inside of pan and outside although it is slightly better.
DH isn't convinced it is worth saving. Can you guys give me any recommendations on cleaning this up? I'd like to get it back in usable shape as easily & painlessly as possible before giving up on it entirely.
Thanks!
Angela
I have put pots dry on the stove top burner on high and incinerated stubborn dirt. It take some time but it will turn to ash and fall off.
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My cousin passed away yesterday. She had been HIV positive for about 13 years, and apparently the medications she was taking to prevent full-blown AIDS, along with some of her lifestyle choices, were tough on her liver.
She was only 40.
We weren't terribly close, but I feel awful for her mother (who I knew better than I knew my cousin).
If you think about it, would you say a prayer my cousin's parents (Mary and Ron)?
Crissy, the idea that its the very drugs that we need in order to stave off a chronic disease that are the thing that ends up hurting us is very, very sobering indeed.
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But aren't those properties all taught it most elementary mathematics programs? Or am I being naive? Certainly they've been featured and reviewed constantly in the program we've used. ... I'm not saying they're immaterial -- just that they're basic enough principles that I would expect students to know them well before they reach algebra (if not expressed in exactly the way that they are in your link). Am I wrong?
They aren't "basic" in the sense of being simple. They are more like foundational. Mathematicians have made careers talking about the differences between things (groups) that follow some of these rules and things that follow all of the rules. Essentially all of these various properties and what happens when they are or aren't true is the sum total of what one learns in Abstract Algebra so this isn't something that can be covered in its entirety in a K-8 arithmetic program. Usually what you might see in arithmetic is the appearance of the distributive, commutive, and associative properties and the book states it and then has the kid apply it in the simplest way possible or identify the use of it in a very simple way.
However, what you don't see (but if your arithmetic book does this I'd be interested) is go in depth into distinguishing between properties of numbers, axioms, definitions, theorems, and notation. It's all thrown in there and all mixed up. It's all ad hoc. And the students aren't required to use them as axioms, but instead they are taught "facts."
That 2 X 3 = 3 X 2 is true is not "learning the commutative law". In fact, even learning that such a property is called "the commutative law" is not "learning the commutative law."
"Learning the field axioms" entails being able to write down the general statement of the principle involved, not merely as a fact about the integers, but as a property that any set of elements together with any kind of operater on that set may or may not satisfy. "Learning the field axioms" also entails being able to use the list of axioms/properties that some given set and its operators might satisfy and actually derive significant mathematical results from that list through an unbroken chain of completely valid logical deductions. :tongue_smilie:
What seems to happen in most algebra books is that the student never is expected to make a distinction that multiplication distibutes over addition is axiomatic, but that it distributes over subtraction is not. Or, that the natural numbers are closed under addition is axiomatic but that they are closed under subtraction must be proved. And, they would "know" and use the rules of order of operations but they wouldn't know how those fit in with the other rules they've memorized. The rules about order of operations are not on "the list" of field axioms, for example. So, unless there is a master list ,the student is likely to go through his algebra book lumping it all together because he's never been given an indication that there is some sort of structure or hierarchy to all these facts that he's memorizing.
Once this list is memorized then there can follow discussion about what happens if one of the properties is missing, so beginning in ninth grade algebra, with a text like Allen or Dolciani the student is getting an introductory taste of groups, rings, and field theory along with the skills it takes to prove theorems. This maturity of proving theorems, to gauge the appropriate amount of rigor for a given problem, constitute "true" math skills that cannot be acquired over night, skills that are absolutely necessary in doing in higher math (not to be understood as engineering calculus), For instance, after a diet of Allen, Gelfand, Oakley and Allendoerfer even an average student has acquired the skills needed for a Calculus text such as Spivak. Even a really good program like Singapore would leave a student unprepared for Spivak.
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I first heard this poem on NPR:
Why I Have A Crush On You, UPS Man
you bring me all the things I order
are never in a bad mood
always have a jaunty wave as you drive away
look good in your brown shorts
we have an ideal uncomplicated relationship
you're like a cute boyfriend with great legs
who always brings the perfect present
(why, it's just what I've always wanted!)
and then is considerate enough to go away
oh, UPS Man, let's hop in your clean brown truck and elope !
ditch your job, I'll ditch mine
let's hit the road for Brownsville
and tempt each other
with all the luscious brown foods — roast beef, dark chocolate,brownies, Guinness, homemade pumpernickel, molasses cookies
I'll make you my mama's bourbon pecan pie
we'll give all the packages to kind looking strangers
live in a cozy wood cabin
with a brown dog or two
and a black and brown tabby
I'm serious, UPS Man. Let's do it.Where do I sign?
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Whoa, hadn't even thought about that one.
I am suspicous of people who ask me about any prescription medication that I might be taking when it isn't in a clinical setting. I knew a guy in college that was a drug dealer and he told me that letting people know you were taking certain kinds of drugs was a fast path to getting burglarized so ever since then I deny it if I happen to have a script of anything around--anything that a teen might abuse for kicks and giggles can be stolen. Another scenario is you tell a trusted friend, she mentions it in a conversation when her son and his friend are around and then boom, your stuff is gone.
To reinforce my paranoia there was a family that I knew with the mother suffering from cancer and she had a LOT of meds in her house, everyone knew of their situation and one day their house was broken into and the only thing stolen was her meds. They weren't able to replace the meds because they were so expensive and she died (I don't remember if she was going to die anyway though, I was young at the time and just heard the adults making a big deal out of this)
I just wouldn't tell anyone that I had any meds, jewelry, cash, or guns in my house unless there was a compelling reason for them to know that.
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These people in your home will all just deny it very convincingly if asked.
We have this inexpensive safe in our bedroom we use for things that we don't want to disappear. While we live in a nice neighborhood there have been a lot of break-ins reported.
Unlike other safes with this one you key in a sequence of buttons, no dials or keys, and it sits on the nightstand next to the bed. It's HEAVY.
It's got a little shelf on the inside to accomodate small objects, such as bottles, a stack of cash, passports, and enough space on the other shelf for something like a pistol.
People will steal the meds not for their own use but because of their street value :-(
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Thank you for the link to the Algebra book and the property of numbers list.
Where did you find those old books or are they yours?
Blessings in your homeschooling journey!
Sincerely,
Karen
That particular book is by an author called Frank Allen. His name came up in an online rant by a mathematician called Ralph Raimi about math education in the 1960s. Allen was described as being "too rigorous."
In the language of mathematicians, "rigorous" has a special meaning. It means that all assertions are proven using the axioms of that particular subject. The list of field axioms that I put up is what is used in algebra. Geometry has its set of axioms as well and axioms are used in the study of logic and set theory. At any rate, to say that a course or book is "rigorous" means that it is taught from the ground up like the way geometry used to be taught. You start with axioms and prove theorems and then those theorems are used to prove yet more theorems. Rigorous math means that every assertion that you make is backed up with this kind of formal proving business.
And so I laughed when I saw someone refer to something as "too rigorous"...It's a little hard to explain why this is funny, but it's like saying that someone has too much money or has memorized too many facts, or is too moral.
We found the book used online and we got the algebra II version as well. I did some blog entries about this a year or so ago and the remaining used copies were snapped up. Occassionally folks email me and tell me that they were able to acquire the second edition through interlibrary loan.
I don't usually recommend this book per se, since almost no one has a background in theorem proving and there is no answer key or teacher's guide. I can run into the other room and get help when I need it (usually getting more than I bargained for).
If you are looking for a purely philosophical approach to algebra then I highly recommend Gelfand's Algebra which can be used as a supplement to any algebra program, but he doesn't list out the axioms (Of course, you have them now!) Gelfand's approach is not as "technical" as Frank Allen's or Dolciani's though...and Gelfand does not drill. He assumes that the student is motivated and interested and willing to spend a lot of time on fun stumper problems. Allen, on the other hand, assumes he's got a reticent unmathy teen who doesn't care about math but has to learn it any way. Russian math books like Gelfand's seem very chatty and less orderly than American books, but they have amazing content for the motivated student.
My husband put all the solutions to Gelfand's problems online for free for anyone interested in using this program. H Wu is a Berkely mathematician involved with teacher training in California and has written a long review of Gelfand's books here. He spends the first seven pages talking about the sad state of the teachig of algebra (technique is emphasized over the intellectual aspect) and then on page 7 begins the actual review. Wu brings up the criticism that Gelfand's Algebra doesn't have every topic in it under the sun, and that is true. However, this is a small paper back book with just a few hundred problems and was designed for use in a correspondence school of gifted kids who would use it as a supplement while attending normal high school algebra classes.
Finally, for those with a classical education bent who don't want to redo their entire math plans , you may enjoy "Lapses in Mathematical Reasoning". It's an English translation of a Russian book from the 1950's. It is a collection of 80 false proofs that are at the high school level and you read through the solution to some problem and spot the fallacy. Some of them just reflect run of the mill mistakes and some of them lead to interesting discussions about deeper issues, long-winded answers are at the end of every chapter. As you can see by the table of contents the authors of the book chose to extend Aristotle's refutations to sophisms of a mathematical nature which gives it a very philosophical feel that I had a lot of fun with. The chapter on arithmetical errors was not as good as the others since they relied on pecularities of algorithms that we don't use any more.
So, just because NEM or Saxon is not perfect, there are things you can do to supplement whatever you have without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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My older two boys will be away at camp next week and I already have a headache thinking about how much talking my 6 yo will be doing with me. Does that sound terrible? (As I'm typing this I heard ds13 say to ds6, "Ethan, please don't talk." :lol:) Any tips on how to keep my sanity? I'm planning on some outings and having others over to help deflect some of the words onto them, but I thought I'd ask to see how you all handle it.
When one of my sons was 4 he started talking in the car east of Columbia, SC, on I-20 and did not stop talking until Birmingham, AL.
Now that he's older you would think that putting him in front of a video game would otherwise occupy him, but like a sports commentator he runs his mouth nonstop narrating exactly what is happening to everyone around him. He'll even yell down the stairs if we aren't in the same room with him.
Next summer I'm thinking about putting him in a summer program run by a private all boys school called the "Marine Military Academy" which was highly recommended to us by a now retired Marine. :D
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...For some reason, I can't access the link.
Thanks!
I think I fixed it. LINK
And you also have different lists for the properties of equality (goes back to Euclid!), inequalties, and set theory, but that takes you to areas outside of algebra.
Here is a sample page of the old high school algebra book that we use, you can see that it's about the idea behind algebra. On this particular page they are still introducing the properties of numbers, marked with "P" and then you can see how it veers off into what amounts to a philosophical discussion. Now that we've assumed that every number has a reciprocal, how do we know that that it has only one reciprocal?
You just don't see that in NEM.
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NEM does not provide lists of theorems and postulates for algebra and do "proofs or show tha this equals this"
CoffeeBean
That's why we don't like it, but the only other algebra programs that I know of that do it are Foerster's and the older Dolcianis. I've seen Saxon discuss, say the distributive law, but I haven't seen them list out the field axioms like Foester's does. Sounds like making a list of which algebra programs do this and which algebra programs don't would make an interesting project. For those of you wondering what we are talking about. This is the list of properties of numbers that everyone should know backward and forward in algebra in order to be able to do any proofs in algebra or even to be able provide justification for "why did you move x from here to there" in solving an algebra problem.
The argument against this is that you don't "need" proofs and formal justifications when you are doing rune manipulations and are just interested in "getting the answer."
To expand on an observation made by Edmund Landau, "How can you say you know math when you don't even know the mathematical reason why multiplying two negatives gives you a positive?"
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It seems like quite a few families use Singapore Primary Math...I was wondering why there don't seem to be as many using NEM?
My husband who has his MS in math wanted to use a more theoretical approach to math and so we found some obselete books which teach a lot of proofs in algebra and bring up a lot of "higher math" topics. The old 1960s Dolcianis offer a similar "theoretical" approach as well and sometimes you hear Jane in NC on the high school board talk about them.
Before we found out that pure math was an option over an engineering approach (officially "math methods in the physical sciences") and switched, I was well on my way teaching out of NEM 1. And in fact, this past week I've been mining the NEM series for good word problems to supplement what we are doing. You just can't beat Singapore word problems.
I'm also going to be ordering a Teacher's Manual for Secondary Math directly from Singapore next week and posting a review of it for those who want more support in teaching NEM.
Be aware that the NEM series does not cover all high school math topics. It pretty much just covers algebra I, geometry, and algebra II. It doesn't do trig in depth, it doesn't cover a lot of precalc topics such as polar coordinates and mathematical induction. However, you would be finished with the NEM series at the end of the tenth grade and would have covered a lot of trig by then as well as vectors.
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I want to do more scrambled eggs for dinners, as they are cheap, tasty, easy protein. But I have to admit, my scrambled eggs are bland.
So, what's the secret? Why are restaurant scrambled eggs so much tastier than mine? How do I make them better?
Michelle T
Where I live we add chorizo to them....sometimes cheddar.
I eat them with tabasco.
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What is your avatar/profile photo? Does it have a particular meaning to you?
Mine is a picture of me when I was 3 years old, vacationing at Daytona Beach, FL with my mom and dad. I've always liked that picture, so I decided to use it.
It's of the tall ship Elissa.
My son was involved in a seamanship training.
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the other person says they put rep beggars on their ignore list. Ummm, I wasn't begging rep, but the opposite! I honestly don't "get" that.
My apologies to those who've seen this before....REP BEGGAR:
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I'm already out:glare: but I'm always up for a party.
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I say, stay at the hotel - explain that you really think it's for the best, both for your family and your health reasons. But also tell your SIL that you would still love to see her newly remodeled room - and once you do, go absolutely gaa-gaa over it. That way, she'll get to show off her new room, she'll get praise for it, and you'll be happy and comfortable in your hotel!
:001_smile:
Hey! I was just about to say that.
And say, "Ooooh, if only I were younger/healthier I could stay here...there's so much stuff I can't do anymore" or something along those lines.
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It's hard not to offend a selfish person.
She's more interested in role playing and making sure everyone complies with her "tea party" requirements than in the comfort of her guests.
Just keep reiterating your physical needs, drone on for 20 minutes about all your aches and pains in detail and maybe she'll get the point. She'll be disappointed but she'll be more understanding. Then when you get there go on and on and on about it again. Sometimes it just takes time to register.
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Need recommendations for high school secular chemistry. Student is proficient in math, so it does not need to be math-light.
We'll be using Singapore's Chemistry. None of their stuff is math-lite.
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Sometimes I really want to say something else, and at times, I do if I feel that they are truly, truly interested in what I really think. But, other times, I feel like they are just trying to start a conversation I'm not willing to be involved in. What people use is sometimes really personal to them and they get super defensive.
Just ask me about my choices!:glare:
Yeah, it's hard to tell when someone really wants honest input or if they simply want validation. Well, it is for me anyway, but I lack social skills...and impulse control.
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My only solace, I must confess, is that no one seems to listen to me...:w00t:
I think I know where you are coming from.
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The Common Room - Homeschooling mother of 10 who has an usually keen eye for political sheningans and corruption in the government, very good writing skills, and mixes up the politics with personal blog entries.
WTM chat room
in Introductions & Test Posting
Posted
I would love it too.