Do we just keep going?

[nova147]

I'm going to try not to ramble, but my brain is rather crowded just now, so bear with me. :D DS5 is enjoying school. Me, I feel a bit crazy about it. He's SO outside the "box" that I never know what to do with him next.

 

Math is a mess for me. Tried Saxon - way to slow and repetitive. Tried Miquon - confused me, so he didn't get much from it. Decided to go with a "living math" approach. We play a lot of math games. This is good - he demonstrates a clear understanding of addition and subtraction concepts. I don't know what else to do with him, so I decide to teach him about money, which is what we're doing this week and he is doing very well. I suppose this is a good lead in to place value (where we are going next week) and then two digit addition and subtraction. I find myself printing a lot of worksheets because it's how I know how to do math, and may start pulling stuff out of Saxon and or Miquon (since I have them). But this stuff is supposed to take months to develop, and it takes him weeks. Do I just speed through it until we get to some of the "meatier" stuff like algebra and geometry? Do I drill him on addition and subtraction facts (which seems age-inappropriate for a 5 year old)?

 

And then their is the language arts arena. We're doing AAS to reinforce phonics - started level 2 a couple of weeks ago. It took about 20 days to get through level 1 and we'll almost certainly be done with level 2 by Christmas. I have level 3, but . . . should we just keep going? His handwriting is age-appropriate (by which I mean he struggles with it and it is physically difficult), so when we do phrases/sentences, he spells while I write. If I make him do the writing, it would slow him down a lot - he'd probably not finish level 2 until the end of the school year because of how many words he would need to write. But it seems wrong to me to slow down his congnitive processes just because his fine motor skills are "normal". On the other hand, at this pace, he will likely be done with all 6 levels of AAS at the end of 1st grade -- which seems awfully soon to me. Maybe I should start doing FLL (which I plan to use next year) every other day to spread things out?

 

I probably just need to :chillpill:. But if anyone has some good ideas to share, I'd love to hear other opinions.

[Mandy in TN]

http://www.livingmath.net/

Did you know there is living math?

 

As far as LA, if you like it and it's working, I vote to keep going.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[zaichiki]

Sounds like you're doing exactly what he needs right now. Way to go Mom!

[SunshineMom]

Just keep going.....look ahead to higher level math concepts and work towards those. We are moving quickly too. My dd6 is totally in love with multiplication, totally gets it and now is memorizing the times tables. I picked up a simple multiplication book at Walmart the other day, well she has done about 20pgs in three days. We are going to move into mulitplying double digits soon, next week or so. Just go at your son's pace, fast or slow at times. Go ahead with money, time, double & triple (and so on) addition/subtraction/carrying/borrowing, mulitplication, and division for starters. Keep playing math games too. You are doing terrific!

[Amber in AUS]

I agree with what everyone else has said. Keep moving along at his pace, that is my plan for my kiddos too :)

[Jen in PA]

Lots of good advice here. Just keep going, look for ways to delve deeper along the way, and enjoy the ride!

[StartingOver]

I agree, we are moving on in math, LA, science. Doing most orally.

[lionfamily1999]

Use your library for math. There are so many awesome resources out there. Keep running with him, until he reaches a point where you need to slow down. Just remember to slow down when he needs too :p I sometimes forget that.

 

As for grammar, I would go with FLL. She does not assume that children are writing well and I think most people that use it LOVE it.

 

Way to go! Keep up the good work, and be prepared to be amazed :) If you let them run, it's incredible to see how far they can go.

[EKS]

First, I'm guessing that he will slow down in the upper levels of AAS.

 

Part of being able to spell is being able to spell *while writing*. While a lot of kids would have no trouble shifting from oral to written spelling, some will. I'm not saying to stop what you're doing, just be aware that this can be an issue.

 

As for two digit addition and subtraction, I think it's important to teach this in a way that reinforces place value. So it's critical that you resist any temptation to say, "Just add up the columns." A great way to start with this is to do lots of mental calculations that involve regrouping first--for example, 27 + 54 = 70 + 11 = 81--and when this is easy, then introduce the standard algorithm.

 

Have you looked at Singapore? If you want more challenge, you can add the Intensive Practice books.

[JennW in SoCal]

You are doing the right things!! My oldest ds resolutely stayed way outside of the box all the way through high school and it was an act of blind faith to keep schooling him out there. The trick is to have a handle on the skills that need to be mastered, and work on those, but let all the content happen where ever and how ever it is possible. In that manner they can learn at a breakneck speed without being handicapped by their still developing writing skills. We did the bulk of work orally all the way through high school -- even geometry and algebra were mostly done on a white board while sprawled on the living room floor. We read aloud, listened together to audio books and he did all kinds of unique projects, yet he also wrote essays and took more formal courses outside the house. It was unorthodox but it worked well for him.

 

By all means check out the living math website. It was started by and is run by a very nice homeschool mom in my area -- it's so cool that she has such a successful site! Definitely check out the math section at your library and even the mathematics section at Borders or Barnes and Nobel. You'd be surprised at the odd books that are fun and accessible. I loved Theoni Pappas' books and The Number Devil and Phantom Tollbooth and all the books in the Anno series. There is a book of math games called Family Math that I used quite a bit. You need to do a little prep for some of the games, but it is a great way for cementing basic math while having fun.

 

Oh, and a math tutor I know used to have my ds make up, write out, and solve his own word problems! He LOVED it!

 

I don't know any of the current phonics and LA programs. We just read and read and did some copy work and dictation, diagrammed sentences and played with words. Oral narrations and discussion were a natural part of our day which translated nicely into written narrations and essays as they got older.

 

So in answer to your question -- yes!! You just keep going! You are doing a great job!

[Nan in Mass]

I did those with my son. We also had fun doing long word problems in the car, playing with different number bases, and doing "what am I" problems with rods. The word problems went something like, "I want to make a double batch of cookies and the recipe says to add two and a half cups of flour. How much do I add?" Or "A farmer has a field and he wants to measure it. He knows one of his strides is a yard long. How many feet is that? So if one side of his field is twenty strides long, how many feet is it? And if he wants to plant a tomato plant every two feet, how many does he need?... etc." It was all oral and I acted as the pencil and paper to remember the half-way-through numbers. The rod puzzles went soething like this (making up the colours because I can't remember them): "Two of me and a white are the same length as a black. What am I?" or "I am looking for two rods. They are different colours. In a train they are the length of a black. The difference in their lengths is a blue. What are they?" or "Six of me make a green and a black." It is easy to make them up if you think of simple algebra problems. Like 2x+3=10+1, or x+y=7 and x-y=1, or 6x=12. It is fun to make ones involving two variables because then the child has to make a guess and then try it in the second half of the problem.

 

This is about the point when I added recorder, sang lots of songs and played music games like matching a clapping pattern, used teh Ed Emberly drawing books, got tons of children's classics on tape from the library, and came home with a giant stack of library books to read every week. You can add a foreign language, too, if your child is interested. Don't try to do too much, but rather than doing lots and lots of math, you can vary it with lots and lots of library books. It makes things easier for you. The object isn't to slow down, necessarily, but to widen out.

 

Jenn is so, so right. Dividing the skills from the content is the key. That way, while you are learning to write your numbers you can be looking up particle accelerators in the encyclopaedia. If you ignore the skills, the child hits a wall eventually and gets frustrated. If you work only on the skills, the child gets bored and hates school.

 

-Nan

[nova147]

Thanks for the support and ideas! I LOVE the living math website and think my librarian thinks I'm crazy, since we check out as many "math" books as story books when we go to the library!

 

Jenn - your skills vs content comment is really helpful to me and I appreciate it greatly. That really sums up a lot of the "problems" we have.

 

EKS - thanks for the reminder about spelling WHILE writing - I think I will start having him write at least one sentence each day to make sure he's making this connection without overwhelming him. And I'll take a look at Singapore math.

 

Nan - I need to keep remembering to widen our curriculum. I'm hoping to have the $ for a used piano soon, but perhaps I'll get a recorder in the interim -- music is definatly a weak area for him (he has very little sense of rhythm) and I think an instrument would encourage him to explore it. Of course, if I get him one, his little sister will need one too, and then things will get loud . . . but these are the things we do in the name of our children's well-rounded education, right? :D

 

Thanks again, everyone!

[Amie]

Many people begin FLL with 5yo's in K. I'm not saying he needs to, but if you are looking for something else to do he could probably begin as soon as you'd like.

[Truscifi]

I do FLL with ds5. I also do Singapore math and he has zoomed through 1A and 1B. We will probably start 2A in the next couple weeks.

 

Clearly I support keeping going :D, but we also try to widen as well. We do karate and tball, science, history, LOTS of extra reading, field trips, coop activities, art lessons...basically anything I can think of. If I didn't give him so much else to do, I can't imagine how fast he would eat up math and LA.

[joannqn]

I'd just keep on going until you get to algebra and then add in Art of Problem Solving. Actually, you can add in Math Olympiads a bit before that.

[Storm Bay]

Math Games are good. You may wish to try MEP and/or Singapore Math. Saxon and Miquon weren't good fits here, either. But heuristically, SM is very strong. MEP is free, and you can find it at http://cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm . You will eventually need a password, but you can try it without one. I suggest printing out the teacher's guide, since that's the best part. This is rigourous math, and the games they play are fun (not all games, but there are some.) Saxon is rarely a good fit for the gifted in math, as far as I've seen.

[Janelless]

Outside the box sooooo describes Clarissa. She's been outside the box since she was born. I'm new here and have nothing to add about LA or anything...but I'm using the Living Math site for book suggestions and I also purchased several of the "I Love Math" series from Amazon. Clarissa is loving them. So am I for that fact. We're just starting Look Both Ways City Math this week ... there's a mystery with a Professor Guesser...this one is even odd numbers buildings...but it also covers a whole wide range of topics all relating to city. Clarissa also really likes the Sir Cumference and Lady Di books

 

Janelle