k7sandra
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Posts posted by k7sandra
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The other day watching my seven year old have a conversation about atoms, the atomic bomb, and World War I with a retired man in a wheel chair at the mall. What about socialization?
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My first and second grader are reading pretty much anything they pick up. I wasn't sure how much to focus on phonics given they are reading . My approach was to keep them reading and work on other skills, but not sure if Phonics still is needed (maybe for the spelling side?) I am using MCP Plaid Phonics and Spelling workout, but not sure if this enough. Prior to using this I had ordered Abeka and felt this was too much.
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We are currently using Saxon Math 1 and 3. It seems to be paced slow, especially for my son who has a natural aptitude for math. I like the idea of some spiral, to keep up with skills. But I also like the idea of mastery since my son needs to be able to be advanced through a curriculum at his pace and doesn't always need the repetition to master. Anyone found a good combination of this in a program? Saxon feels impossible to advance him in, as I go through the lessons it feels like I would be cutting a portion out to focus on one small aspect that is lightly covered..(not sure that makes sense I am having a hard time explaining why it doesn't seem to work). Someone recommended Christian Lite, another Singapore, and another MM. I know what I am looking for, something that gives enough repetition and drill if needed, but also allows you to advance if appropriate, or is a more advanced paced curriculum. Any advice????
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Thank you, I can always make it available for him if he is ready, although I am thinking it may be to hard for him. The other issue is that he just came out of the school system, so he is used to floating by with little effort and getting a 100%. So sometimes it is just a motivational or perfectionist thing, that with a challenge comes more work and errors. I don't want to overdue it of course, but I would like to see him being challenged. He had asked for it all year last year in school (even writing it on the top of his work), but then he stopped and was content to coast along easily after the harder work came with 10 rules to complete before he was allowed to work in the "challenge" folder. :? rr.
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Our older child started jacobs algebra at about age 11 or 12 and did it easily. the younger one was capable of doing the jacobs geometry at age 8 when we briefly experimented, but we resisted because the older one had objected to being taught extra math at home in addition to school. 7 years later, when the younger one finally got to geometry in school, I regretted not introducing him to jacobs earlier at home, since by then his school had switched to saxon.
I believe there is no particular age or grade at which a child can handle a certain topic, if he/she is interested and it is introduced with words and terms he/she can understand. E.g. not every child should have to wait until age 15 to contemplate a circle, or a triangle, or an icosahedron for that matter. A very young child may appreciate, by playing with straws, that a triangle is rigid but a 4 sided plane figure is not, whereas all convex solids are rigid, no matter how many faces they have. i.e. you can squash a square made of straws but not a triangle (this is called the side -side -side congruence theorem), but you can't squash either a tetrahedron or a cube.
It is true that today many geometry books, including jacobs, assume a child already knows about real numbers, and base geometry on measurement. Although I like Jacobs' book, I find this approach somewhat artificial. In particular it departs totally from Euclid's original naive treatment which assumes only a knowledge of adding and subtracting integers, barely even that. Euclid does everything using only the simplest notions, such as comparing two things to see which is greater.
Jacobs' approach to algebra is also very elementary and intuitive, using empty boxes to represent unknown numbers. thus again essentially one only needs to know about adding and subtracting and multiplying.
my apologies as this is fast becoming another one of my pointy headed professor soapbox speeches.
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Our older child started jacobs algebra at about age 11 or 12 and did it easily. the younger one was capable of doing the jacobs geometry at age 8 when we briefly experimented, but we resisted because the older one had objected to being taught extra math at home in addition to school. 7 years later, when the younger one finally got to geometry in school, I regretted not introducing him to jacobs earlier at home, since by then his school had switched to saxon.
I believe there is no particular age or grade at which a child can handle a certain topic, if he/she is interested and it is introduced with words and terms he/she can understand. E.g. not every child should have to wait until age 15 to contemplate a circle, or a triangle, or an icosahedron for that matter. A very young child may appreciate, by playing with straws, that a triangle is rigid but a 4 sided plane figure is not, whereas all convex solids are rigid, no matter how many faces they have. i.e. you can squash a square made of straws but not a triangle (this is called the side -side -side congruence theorem), but you can't squash either a tetrahedron or a cube.
It is true that today many geometry books, including jacobs, assume a child already knows about real numbers, and base geometry on measurement. Although I like Jacobs' book, I find this approach somewhat artificial. In particular it departs totally from Euclid's original naive treatment which assumes only a knowledge of adding and subtracting integers, barely even that. Euclid does everything using only the simplest notions, such as comparing two things to see which is greater.
Jacobs' approach to algebra is also very elementary and intuitive, using empty boxes to represent unknown numbers. thus again essentially one only needs to know about adding and subtracting and multiplying.
my apologies as this is fast becoming another one of my pointy headed professor soapbox speeches.
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We had two mathematically gifted children with different characteristics. One had a steel trap memory while the other caught on quickly and forgot as quickly. The first was taught algebra at home from Jacobs Elementary Algebra and benefited enormously. The second was taught at school from Saxon and may have benefited in retention from the repetition, but found it dull. Both scored very high on SAT math tests.
The first became a math major in college, the second dropped out of math in college. Unless a child has retention issues, I would tend not to encourage use of Saxon materials in the case of mathematically gifted kids, due to what I perceive as lack of creative stimulation, understanding and depth. Indeed some scholarly studies I have read show that even the claims made for increased standardized tests scores and increased math interest by the publishers of Saxon are unjustified.
To me, Jacobs excels in creativity, challenge, and the element of fun, combined with solid mathematical content. For profoundly gifted kids, the classics such as Euclid and Euler may be worth a try for geometry and algebra.
He doesn't seem to forget, he seems to go into the lessons getting the concept before the lesson. He has been doing math in his head since he was young, I remember at the age of 4 and I was giving him stars worth 25 cents, he would know how many more he needed to get to 20 dollars, ect. I did not do any instruction with him in math at the time, he just seemed to naturally know how to use mathematical concepts. But, like in the case of regrouping, he needed formal instruction of the concept and how to apply it because doing long math problems in his head was not ideal. So this is where I don't want to skip too much and leave gaps, and give him enough practice and repetition to solidify it. So difficult to know how to approach this! Looked into Jacobs but it seems to start at grade 9?
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SAxons repetition is important for the kinds of kids who learn that way. Kids who learn the way your son learns will not be missing anything by skipping it.
You dont say how old your child is. Singapore is considered the strongest math curriculum, except for the newcomer, beast academy. But beast academy only has grade 3 out so far, and some of grade 4, it seems to be taking them more than a year to publish a full year of curriculum, and its costly. Plus the 'textbook' is in comic book format, which some people cant stand. But the workbook problems are fantastic - challenging, pushing these intuitive kids to have to think much harder. Beat academy turns in to Art of Problem Solving at the pre-algebra level (tho some say the pre-algebra book is harder than the algebra book)
If you go with singapore, there is also singapore challenging word problems to supplement. The teachers manual is not usually necessary if you are comfortable with math enough to help your kid if they should get stuck. it is important if you need help teaching - but it sounds like your kids wont need much teaching.
Another option is Life of Fred - which some see as supplement and some see as enough math for gifted kids. I've only used it starting with the fractions book.
Thanks! That Beast Academy sounds right up my Son's alley! He is a 7 and I have him in Saxon 3 at the moment. Also Singapore sounds good. The thing I like about Saxon, is some of the drill work and timed tests, it seems that doing this with ease will free them up to move more smoothly as problems get harder. But my son actually started off doing the timed tests with ease anyway, he usually gets past the goal of a certain amount of problems in x amount of time, and does the whole thing. But he enjoys the timed tests.
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The Saxon people told me not to skip either, and we haven't been yet. The issue Saxon seems to introduce something lightly and do much repetition lesson after lesson just on the surface and it seems unchallenging, especially as he often goes into the lesson understanding the concept already, and can skip count with ease so the constant practice just seems tiring. He does it because he enjoys math, but it is not challenging him and he has mentioned it is too easy. I think he would benefit from a program that takes a concept and applies it more complexly before moving on, and then revisits it. And at the same time, does some drill on math facts and multiplication tables just to be sure this work can be done with ease as problems get more complex. Saxon seems to do the drill and repetition a lot, but does not seem to make the concept more complex so they can learn how to apply it more difficultly. From what it sounds like Singapore may do this? Does anyone know if it also does focus on some drill and memorization for ease of answering problems ? What about Math Mammoth? It seems like MM does mastery and uses memorization also....but I can't really tell....so confused!
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Do you recommend the teacher's guide with Singapore? There seems to be no unit tests that I can find in Saxon. I just don't know how to approach math with him or where to place him, since he can do a lot of it naturally but still needs tools to handle more complicated problems. Once he gets a concept, he can apply it to more complicated scenarios quickly. But again, I am unsure if the spiral approach to Saxon builds some future foundation and so there is a benefit to having him continue to do the work. Saxon was high recommended to me, but I am just not seeing it right now.
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We are using Saxon with our son who gets math naturally and masters new concepts quickly. We are using Saxon but the repetition and seemingly slow pace seems to not be working for him, it almost feels like it is holding him back. I am wondering if there is some future benefit of the repetition and drills that make it worthwhile? I also am not sure what approach would work for him, since it seems like it may be a general problem that he is introduced to a new topic and is able to master it sooner then the curriculum moves on from it (and this seems even harder to get around with Saxon, when I try to go ahead I cannot really find a good start point). He loves word problems also, but Saxon right now is only putting them in the context of the calendar which he will do, but really does not enjoy. Any advice?
Saxon not working for my Mathmatically Gifted Child
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