elmerRex
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Posts posted by elmerRex
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Yes, Saxon is do the warm up, teach the lesson and do your review.
A part of the warm up calls for math fact practice--there are "Saxon math fact" work sheets, but you need to memorize and know the facts--not fill out the worksheet. If you can drill your math facts without the worksheets then there is no reason to buy them, in my experience.
We used Saxon Math 54 (and Math 65) all the way through, very successfully and we never used the tests or the Saxon fact drill pages.
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I have been looking at MIF Course 1 as a text for next year. You can preview the online materials for course 1-3 through this schools website. There is also a PDF of Course 1A and Course 1B out there if you can use google and find it. (Just enter "MIF Course 1 PDF" into Google)
We are using Saxon now, but thinking to go to MIF Course 1 in the fall.
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I do not think that he made it to this lesson and is unable to understand the content. I think that maybe he just needs to slow down and work each problem carefully. Do a few problems each day until his fluency is gooder.
Can he understand place value? Because if he can understand place value then have you tried modeling this out with the base 10 blocks and building the problems?
We build our divisor 126 with base-10 as
1H 2T 6U | we can not split the 1H into 6 equal groups but we can exchange 1H for 10Ts so our quantity becomes
0H 12T 6U | now check to see if you can distribute them--12Ts can be distributed into 6 groups of 2T each and that leaves us with just
6U | which can of course be distributed into 6 groups of 1U each so our answer is 2T6U or 26
Practice with diligence and success is yours for the taking.
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None. We could not do formal reading lessons with my son until he was 6 and even then it was a struggle. We got a tutor and she told us that its better to do nothing than force the issue with young kids. She is a gentle and masterful reading teacher.
She will help a child to read at 2 or 3, but she will not teach an unwilling or anxious 5 year old to read.
I would read to her until December--give her many positive experiences with books and words. Teach handwriting and give her simple words to spell, but do not ask or require any reading of an anxious-about-reading-5/6 year old.
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When I asked a similar question about going from Math 54 to Math 65 I was encouraged to test through as well. Its my understanding that that is the accepted and common practice for Saxon Users. My son has used Math 54 and Math 65 and it went very well for him. Saxon was a great fit for my son. I am so happy with Saxon Math and its problem sets that I can not wait to do the books with my younger kids. My son is young and ESL, so we did ALL of Math 65, though we could have tested him through.
While we were in Math 65 I looked at and considered continuing but I do not like the looks and the content of Course 1, Course 2, and Course 3 (Those are the new versions of 76, 87 and Algebra 1/2) so I have done something outside of "The Normal Way". I decided against the middle books completely and started my son on the 1st edition version of Saxon Algebra 1 which I got very cheap and it is going very well so far. We do not plan to finish the whole Algebra text with him just yet--this is our summer time math experiment.
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What about an abacus? Like one of those mini ones from Right Start? They even have a book of ideas to use it to teach a bunch of things.
Oh I forgot, they will be in soroban/abacus lessons with cousins once we get home.
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ETA: Wow, I'm so tired that I forgot that I actually do have plans for math already. Sorry everyone never-mind
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Review Part II: This part deals with only the second part of the book which includes topics on
11 - Modular Arithmetic
12 - Long Multiplication
13 - Combinatorics
14 - Squaring Numbers in Your Head
15 - Regular Polyhedra
16 - Unmultiplying and the Prime Factorization Number System
17 - Fractions
18 - Probability
19 - Division
20 - Fractions Part 2
21 - Decimals
and the only chapters we worked are the ones that look like this. I, mama, read the whole book but it was a while ago since I had forgotten this book because we returned it to the library. We have not worked to get the book again because it was not much left for us to do in that book, but I am grateful to the book. It provided my babyish son a great experience with "hard" math. He has much confidence from doing work from a "hard math book" that it is noticeable growth in him.
I decided not to do the chapter on modular arithmetic with my son. It seemed like it will be a better topic to learn about later. I do not know if that was the BEST decision but it was a GOOD decision for us because of what happened when we tried the chapter on combinatorics.
I have to say that the chapter on combinatorics--as written--would not be understood well by my sons head. The language was trickier for me to make sense of (I'm ESL) and its not a topic that I am fluent with, so I struggled to see the whole truth in that chapter and I didn't trust my self to teach "the gaps" that I know that the author leaves when he writes on math (The author is not clear or precise so I didn't want to be unclear and imprecise while teaching my son, especially when I did not know what I was leaving out)
But a great thing happened when I was confused: my son thought that any math that mama can't understand must be the most fascinating!
He became interested in combinatorics and so I found another source and we have been working out of Combinatorics for the 3rd Grade Classroom. Its a good resource to have and my son loves it a lot and he likes that we are learning it together. But he still gets mad when he asks a question and I do not know the answer or the explanation and so have to study it first.
My son loves shapes and geometry so the chapter on Polyhedra wasn't even enough for him. I found two more resources that we used when we worked from that chapter: Math Is Funs: Regular Polyhedra and 3D Polyhedron Shapes.The most special part of learning about regular polyhedra was of course making them with candy and tooth picks. Of course since we do not have candy in the house much little sister had to eat the math right away making big brother very angry and the fight created a very big fuss. So we wound up doing 3 days of candy math and now all of the kids love polyhedra. It was fun to declare Yes or No to the Polyhedron quiz when the kids were learning about the curved shapes not being polyhedron.
What else is especially interesting because it is very difficult to read and pronounce these big words but my son has been motivated to read and spell more math words so that he can be more independent with his reading.
In conclusion: I'm glad that I took the time to read this book. I'm glad that I took the time to take my son through the book--after the second math competition that he was in he felt very badly about his maths. I told my son that he was good at math, but a bad reader (because he's so lazy about books) but he felt that he was just bad at math too. Since he is being able to work through much of this book he thinks to himself--"Hey, I can do hard math! All of my studying must be paying me back." and his confidence has coming back. Whats extra is he wants to better reading so that he can do good in maths contests without me there.
Even though I do not approve of many of the the ways that the author explained something when making this book, I am very grateful to him. This book was a good "next step" for us. This book is perfect for a kid who works at a good 3rd grade maths book but might not have the best confidence. This book, will mostly cover things that a 3rd grader will know about and it isn't the best "main text" but if nothing else, will expose your child to some interesting topics that probably aren't in their math book or that their teacher won't show them without a request. I would not use this book for ANY arithmetic--addition/subtraction/multiplication/division are better taught by most other books. But as an "extra text" for special topics: Base-8, Tessalations, Logic Puzzles, Area/Perimeter, Modular Arithmetic, Polyhedra and just confidence and working on "hard problems" this book is very valuable.
My son has found a completely new topic that he is interested because of this book: Combinatorics. Also this book gave us a good stepping stone for learning more geomerty because of Polyhedra and has caused many good discussions (and a few bad). My son really enjoyed this book and I'm not sorry that we spent so much time on it.
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Numbers sound weird in English, but when we do English maths we restate things in base-10 when my son stumbles on something that he (should) know well so in your story when my son falters to calculate "sixty-eight less forty" then I would restate it "6ten8 less 4ten" and he'd be more likely to come up with 2ten8 much quicklier.
If you were just coming back from vacation its possible she was slow and faltering from disuse. I would try a few exercises randomly through the day and if she struggled for more than 3 days then yes, I would go back to oral/mental math lessons 3x a week with daily practice sessions. We do Saxon Math and we do the "Warm Up" part orally and mentally at night as my son loves it most that way.
We will always do math "warm ups" because when I was growing up, it wasn't something that little kids did, it was something any student did no matter the age.
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A better use of your time and money is probably to read the HIG for 2nd grade unless you just love reading educational philosophy.
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I would continue in Math in Focus until you are done with the full curriculum since it worked for you and you like.
MiF Courses 1-3 (meant for grades 6-8) include algebra and geometry.
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My suggestion is to start Saxon Course 3 and just keep your notes so that homework is made infinitely easier in the next year. Even just getting through the first several (simple) lessons and having a stock of completed lesson practices can save a lot of sanity in the Fall when school is back in session because much math homework will be done.
If she does not like KhanAcademy videos then the question is how helpful are the exercises to your child? My son does not do well with electronic learning because when the screen is cleared so is his mind, it helpful to him to read, write and recite his math as he's doing it. My son is very slow learner, but diligent worker who learns well with "old school" paper and pencil.
KhanAcademy can be done on a laptop if you are planning on traveling a lot this summer it would be nice if they can be done with Math from ANY where but I do not know of its usefulness with the exercises solving them on a tablet/laptop while you are traveling.
Keys to Algebra is popular here because it gives a good, gentle introduction to Algebra but can be a little costly if you are saving pennies like us. Instead of Keys to Algebra my son is going to do the first 40 lessons of the old Saxon Algebra 1 book for his Summer Maths because its a good introduction to basic algebra and gives practice with integers and substituting values and the exercises do not require a lot of advanced writing. He will do the lessons through discussion and these exercises will be using his mental maths. We are also going to work a lot on rates which is his weakness and word problems which is something he loves.
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What is the term for this?
You will find this practice in classes for nursery and lower primary .
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Thursday - Please bring in a classroom supply for your teacher (notepad, sticky notes, glue sticks, pencils, white board markers, etc.). Check with your Room Parent to see if there is a wish list from your teacher.At the end of the year, why is the teacher needing an infusion of supplies? Shouldn't this be in the middle of the school year? :confused:
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We have a family study time. Quiet Study Time is something that everyone in the family does for about 90 minutes in the evening and we start the kids in it when they are toddlers.
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Thanks for the warning. She is working through Saxon Math Intermediate 3 now. It is often a chore for her, but she understands math much better with this program. The lessons do go better when I am able to sit with her. I will try to sit with her during 5/4, too, and guide the lessons. I am not a "math person", however, and often I am tempted to let her muddle through on her own.
I do not know what you mean by a "not a 'math person'" but that does not sound like a good attitude to use in your foundation to teach from. What is a "math person" anyway? Grade 4 is not complex abstract mathematics. Saxon Math 54 contains mostly arithmetic and some simple geometry. Anyone who has learned grade 4 maths should be able to refresh and teach grade 4 maths.
If not one parent is strong and fluent in arithmetic, then you or your husband should study and practice it to be able to help her better. Math 54 starts out very gently so either work the book ahead of her by reading every lesson, doing all the lesson practice but only doing every 3rd, 4th or 5th Mixed Practice, or get a refresher math book and study it cover to cover.
Do not dismiss it because you are not a "math person" as a home school parent you are the math teacher for your child, without a strong foundation in arithmetic, you should expect her to fail in most other maths. And expect that her science studies will suffer. And expect her grades to be low because of it. And maths effects many girls self confidence and view of their own intelligence, so expect her to "feel dumb" and be very frustrated if maths becomes a barrier for her. Of course as the parent you will hope in your heart that she does not fail maths and have low grades and get bad self esteem, but you should expect this cycle to take place and just be grateful for luck if it does not. Weakness in maths is compounded and growing every day that a student doesn't understand what they are doing, it is not aided by "getting the right answer" without understanding. Its the understanding of the basics that makes each advanced topic easier to understand.
The book that is used is just a tool. The passion, skill and attitude of the teacher is the most important thing for a struggling pupil to have. Perhaps you can work on your own maths while she is working on hers to be a good example and to be able to help. If you work when she does, then you will not invest more time in it because you will be with her anyway.
I do not have intimate knowledge of Saxon Math Intermediate 3 because we started with Math 54. Did you read at the eBook in that link? The entire Math 54 book is online for viewing and use. If Intermediate Math 3 is a chore for her, then I would take a very close look at Math 54 which will not have workbook unless you make one or print the problem sets like we did. I would want to remove as much barrier from between her and the ability to do the work comfortably as possible. I would do everything to set her up to succeed, especially if I didn't feel confident or enthusiastic to teach maths in my home.
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Because you said that she hates maths, I just want to point out that Math 54 is a lot of work for the student. It can be a very great program, but what is your plan for maths time? Will you be on hand for her each day during maths?
I use Saxon Math 54 and Saxon Math 65 but instead of the student reading and learning alone, I teached all maths lessons and supervised the lessons closely to keep them from going too long. My son love maths so it was not a hardship for him to be doing lots of problems, but the problem load in Saxon can be a great hardship for a child that hates maths and doesn't have an active teacher and lots of supervising during the work if they are dreaming and playing around instead of working steadily..
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Thank you to eeryone for all your inputs and discussion. Very valuable :).
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That would depend on the teacher he gets. Not all public school teachers are good at teaching writing. You might still need to keep your son's English tutor. I will definitely check how they are teaching writing in the school and I will try to get him into the best teachers class.
I am assuming you are staying in the states. If you are, then you might have to increase the amount of English tuition or send him to school or set an hour or more a day for him to read in English. <-- If you hate me that much, you could just come out and say it. :lol: My son would run away if we made him read for 1 hour in English. He is only a little boy and does not take to reading with kindness. While my kids do a vocabulary workbook for fun, they get their grammar and vocabulary from daily leisure reading.
If your family is here temporarily then you won't need to worry about how fast he picks up English.
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If you want your son to be truly bilingual and be academically competitive with his U.S. educated peers, he is going to need to have significant and consistent academic instruction in English.
How you go about that is up to you. Other than putting him in school, would you consider something like he Kumon reading and language program? We laughed because we refused to do Kumon (Maths) with him when he was younger like all his peers because he wasn't ready. Now we think that we might try a program like Kumon English for them during the summer while we are away.
How about one year you do Science in English and the next you do Social Science, for example? I would think you need at least two daily periods of instruction in English to achieve your goals, especially since you seem very restrictive with regards to other sources of English in your home and you spend the summers immersed in your home language. We have a nanny and the kids speak to her in English only, but baba and mama do not speak much English with them--there is no reason for me to speak English to my kids all the time, it is unpleasant for us. It isn't about heritage pride, it is an emotional thing. I am not truly bilingual, and I are different in different languages. I am not a mama in English the way that I am in my language. It is just too different and my kids don't like me speaking English all the time.
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Given what you said here, I think you need to put him in school because it sounds like you want 2 incompatible things: you want him to be fluent in English but you do not want to homeschool him in English.
I'm bilingual, my kids are not. It's ime very hard to achieve this (bilingualism in children) at home by yourself. Yes, it is so hard to find the right balance. It's one thing for him to be able to play with friends, but being able to do spelling, grammar, comprehension, writing will require instruction. Also, his lack of vocabulary is probably because of limited exposure. Playing with kids his age will not expand vocabulary.
Books, TV, radio, educational games, &/or exposure to older native speakers having varied conversations will help with that. Yes, this is why we are considering school for them. Even though we take the kids many places and do many activities in English each week, they are still ESL. They have good grammar, but poor vocabulary and my son has accent that he does not like. Our hope is that a year of English school would make stronger his foundation and richer his vocabulary.
The only other way around it would be to hire a tutor for about 1-2 h daily, plus add tv & esl computer programs.
The kids do have many hours with an English tutor every week. We have a nanny who speaks only English with the kids, they get English reading lessons from an English teacher. After the summer we hope that the kids will have 2 English nannies for a while which will give them a chance to see complete models of full conversations at their level.
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The problem with homeschooling in a heritage language at home is that after elementary level, kids need to take standardized testing and similar things where English Language Arts (including vocabulary, reading comprehension etc.) is a big chunk of the test material. Your son will be at a severe disadvantage at that time. And speaking and playing with friends who speak English (even watching TV shows in English) is insufficient to develop deep comprehension and language acquisition. Advanced academics in this country is in English and it takes a lot of vocabulary building to be able to access the knowledge for higher level learning.
What you can expect in a public school: From my experience, there is not much talking your son can do at school time. The early elementary classes have library story time at school, read alouds by the teacher, reading groups, class plays with all children memorizing lines, weekly spelling lists and writing paragraph style essays. Your son will listen a lot to the teachers speaking in english. He will be asked to participate in class discussions in English. He will get remediation and help in his reading and writing if he is struggling in English. What they did not teach is handwriting and penmanship in the time that we were in the PS.
You definitely cannot have it both ways. It seems that you are unhappy with the Public schools and that your feelings towards your heritage stops you from talking in English and you homeschool. We are not mad with public school exactly. We kept our son out of public school because he was not ready for a long day at school with a large group of kids. My son is babish and can be naughty, we did not want him sent around all the time, we did not want him to fail to be a class-room student and his K-grade or 1st grade naughtiness to put shame on him in his records for years to come. We did not want to assign him a task that he can not do because he would just fail at it. We speak mostly our language and some English at home. My son can do reading and maths in both languages, and he is on level with his peers for English reading and understanding. If you continue to homeschool, you need to implement a rigorous education in English from an outside source like a tutor (for remediation and also for advancement in English as it is a core subject). My kids receive private tuition in English, they have an English nanny, an English reading teacher and they do many activities in English--story time, cinema, swimming, music, play group and others. The nanny will leave us, but we plan to replace her. We need a nanny and we would never stop ALL English for the kids.
So, you need to weigh the pros and cons of the decision- you can increase the tutoring and nanny help he gets in English at home and simultaneously encourage him to read and read and read many english language books. Or you can send him to PS and get their help for improving his English skills and add other enrichment like music and art on your own. Part of my problem is my son hates reading so getting him to "read and read and read" is easy to say and difficult to do.
Good luck with your decision.
Thank you for your inputs.
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For me vague notions or ideas about a thing do not satisfy me at all. I have to know. I'm a list maker and a box checker and I like to leave as little to chance as possible. Have you toured the school yourself?
If not, then I suggest you tour the local schools yourself. Go and tour the public, private school and any charter schools in your area. Browse the schools library and ask about the reading level policies that they have for students as a school. Speak with the teachers for your sons grades to learn about the schools philosophy and how they teach in their classes. You want to learn about their experience with and expectations for that grade. Even sit in on a class one grade up and on grade down if they will let you because you should check that the teaching methods are consistent, the lesson progression logical. Ask tons and tons of questions, write down the answers if you need to.
If your son needs books on a different level than his classmates, how accessible will those books be to him?
What are the expectations for 2nd graders their first term?
Do they differentiate reading instruction in the classroom? If so, how?
Do they differentiate math instruction in the classroom? If so, how?
If there is no differentiation in the classroom, then is it available in a pull out?
How is the home-school communication?
How are students evaluated throughout the term?
What type of home work can be expected? How much of it?
How does the school prepare students for states testing?
How often are P-T conferences available?
How is student discipline handled?
What about student-conflict? What do they do when the student-conflict escalates towards bullying levels?
How is bullying handled in the school?
Find out about any and all pull out programs. If you are enrolling your son in 2nd grade, don't just look at 2nd, but ask to watch a 1st grade and 3rd grade class as well so that you can see the progression of lessons and how the teaching style is and whether or not it is consistent. If necessary, ask about the ESL class or pull out and observe that also.
Talk to other parents with kids in the school, both American and non-American. If many of the parents had a similar school experience as you, then they could just be nostalgic for their own school experiences. I'm sure that it is different, but different doesn't mean bad. It just means different.
Very helpful advise. Yes, we are going to the school next week to visit it, but I have not been there since we decided not to send him.
Does anyone use Saxon to accelerate-(either at home or school)?
in Accelerated Learner Board
Posted
Just to clarify: we do not use Saxon Math to accelerate, we use Saxon Math because it fits our accelerated learner.
We did all of Saxon Math 54 and Math 65 in first grade. It was a lot of work, but it helped my son to have his "eureka" moment with math and finally stop "back sliding" when he would forget things. Now that I have come through it. I can say that I would do it again. In fact, I'm going to be doing it again this next school year with my next 2 kids.
Even though we used the Saxon book we taught each topic to him in our own words and he solved the problems from the Saxon book. It worked wonderfully and now he does not just understands our explanations that day or that week, after Saxon he retains everything because of Saxons brilliant problem sets with lots of review and incremental teachings. Saxon is intensive, but it is extremely effective.
In my experience, it doesn't matter what math text or series a teacher uses. Because as the teacher I am the master of material that I'm teaching and the book is just to be a tool for me. My job as a teacher is to serve and assist my son in his learning journey.
For us, the most beneficial thing about Saxon for us is its wonderful problem sets.
In 1st grade we did Math 54, Math 65 and lots of additional word problems. My son also used Hard Math for Elementary for some extra topics of interest.
This summer he's learning abacus, doing (very well in) Saxon Algebra 1 and lots of word problems in English.
We aren't sure if we will continue in Saxon Courses 1-3 or go to Math in Focus Courses 1-3 for the next few years, but we are leaning toward MiF + Supplementation.
I have looked at Saxon Course 1-3 and I do not know that it will be the best use of time for us, we are thinking hard about changing to
For 2nd grade we are doing Math in Focus Course 1 (all of the components)