Tidbits of Learning Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 We have been doing Singapore math with my 4th grader this year. It is her first year out of public school. She tested at 2b and completed it easily. We started 3a and it moves fast through multiplication and double digit mult. and triple digit mult. She struggles but finally had an aha moment with that. Well now we are doing division. Double digit so far and she is struggling so much. I told her to take a step back and we would break and I would work with just her on division next week. We are breaking for Christmas with the other kids. I have the HIG and go over it. We have went over it several times in 2 weeks and then she just lingers and bombs the math. It is hard to deal with and not get frustrated. If I work through the whole problem with her, she will get the answer. If I leave her to do the work, she will sit and hem haw and totally act like it will kill her and she hates the math. I told her no matter what 4th grade math we were doing she would have to learn long division. Am I missing something? Is it just going to magically click like multiplication? Should I entertain the idea of changing math programs? Ugh! Any advise would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spock Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 We have been doing Singapore math with my 4th grader this year. It is her first year out of public school. She tested at 2b and completed it easily. We started 3a and it moves fast through multiplication and double digit mult. and triple digit mult. She struggles but finally had an aha moment with that.Well now we are doing division. Double digit so far and she is struggling so much. I told her to take a step back and we would break and I would work with just her on division next week. We are breaking for Christmas with the other kids. I have the HIG and go over it. We have went over it several times in 2 weeks and then she just lingers and bombs the math. It is hard to deal with and not get frustrated. If I work through the whole problem with her, she will get the answer. If I leave her to do the work, she will sit and hem haw and totally act like it will kill her and she hates the math. I told her no matter what 4th grade math we were doing she would have to learn long division. Am I missing something? Is it just going to magically click like multiplication? Should I entertain the idea of changing math programs? Ugh! Any advise would be appreciated. Since it is almost time for break anyway, I would go ahead and let her have a break from it until after Christmas. Just go back to it when you start back up in January. Very often my children have come to math concepts that seemed extremely difficult for them, even after explaining them several different ways and practicing regularly. Many times if we dropped that topic and went to something else for a while, they easily picked up the problem topic when we went back to it. So, it is possible that your daughter will understand the long division when you start back in January. If not, cuisenaire rods plus hundreds blocks helped my children understand long division better. For example: 140 divided by 4. Get a hundred block, two ten blocks, and a 4 rod (or 4 ones). "Can you divide the hundred block into 4 groups? Okay, then let's break it into 10 tens." (Pause while the blocks are exchanged by the child.) "Divide the 14 ten blocks into 4 equal groups. It's okay if there are leftovers." (Pause while the child divides them into 3 equal groups, with 2 leftover tens.) "Where do we put the leftovers?" (If necessary, show the child that they go with the 4 block or 4 unit blocks. If the child needs the extra step for clarity, trade them for 20 unit blocks.) "Now, let's break the units into 4 equal groups. How many are there?" (Pause for the child to figure this out.) "So, we had 3 tens and 4 units in each group. How many is that in all?" (Pause for an answer.) Repeat this with lots of different numbers. When she is comfortable with it, or even while she is learning, you can show her how each step of this is written down on paper (or dry erase board) as she does the problem with blocks. From there, she can transition to doing the problem only with writing, without using the blocks. If you don't have Cuisenaire rods/place value blocks/MUS blocks, you can use money or beans or whatever is around the house (beans for units, pencils for tens, whatever she can relate to). So far, all of my children have understood long division pretty well after a couple of days of practicing with rods alongside writing down the problems. They did want me to sit with them while they did the problems at first, though. My 4th grade daughter actually LOVES long division now, though she was in tears over the multiple digit multiplication in 4A last week (even though she understood it fine--I don't know why she was so upset). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen in PA Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 My dd just did that same section a few weeks ago, and I tried changing how I phrased things when she seemed to slow down. For instance, if the problem was 96 divided by 8, I would ask "How many times can 8 fit into 9?" Then we would multiply the 1x8 and I would remind her that we had "accounted for those 8 tens, so we subtract the 8 and keep dividing with what is left." I allowed her to use a multiplication chart to aid her where she didn't have the facts totally memorized. I think that just speeding up the process that much helped her feel that things moved more quickly, plus I could see which facts she routinely had to look up and could practice them separately afterwards. Good luck with this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara R Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Long division is a process with many sub skills. If kids practice the sub skills till they are not hard, they can handle long division easier. The sub skills: (1) Multiplication facts to automaticity (2) Division facts to automaticity (3) Division with remainders DD struggled so much with long division. We stepped back and worked on these skills. Once she could handle short division with remainders without her head exploding, she moved seamlessly into long division. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonshineLearner Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Even though I am not saying my daughter loves math... a whiteboard makes it less painful. Be patient.... Go spring for some manipulatives.... I just LOVE Singapore... and wish I found it 4 years ago.... I really can't think of anything I love more. I love that there are SO many parts.... Course... I love this part of Math... my daughter hates it... BUT I can see that she's getting it. :-) Carrie:-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Long division is a process with many sub skills. If kids practice the sub skills till they are not hard, they can handle long division easier. The sub skills: (1) Multiplication facts to automaticity (2) Division facts to automaticity (3) Division with remainders DD struggled so much with long division. We stepped back and worked on these skills. Once she could handle short division with remainders without her head exploding, she moved seamlessly into long division. This has really helped my dd, when she got bogged down in that part of SM. She had forgotten a lot of her time tables (that we had drilled a year earlier alongside SM, since they don't seem to drill anything) a struggled so much. Once we had repeated it, she sped up again and was able to see the bigger picture and not be afraid of the long divisions. Her last 2 tests she got over 90%, which has got her going even more now :auto: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie in MN Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Very often my children have come to math concepts that seemed extremely difficult for them, even after explaining them several different ways and practicing regularly. Many times if we dropped that topic and went to something else for a while, they easily picked up the problem topic when we went back to it. :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testimony Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 My older son is very good in math and stumbled at the long division. Some moms from these boards gave me the advise to use a graph. I bought graph paper. I wrote the numbers in the boxes. Those boxes are great because they help me to line up the numbers, then the child can see the place value better. It worked nicely for him as a tool. I am using for my younger son too. Blessings in your homeschooling journey! Merry Christmas, Karen http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidbits of Learning Posted December 19, 2009 Author Share Posted December 19, 2009 Okay. She did just catch on to multiplication really well recently. So I know those skills are kind of new. I have been letting her use a multiplication/division fact finder to help. I don't have cuissenaire rods or the blue hundred block type things. I have some of those unifix cubes. I am going to the school aid store today and going to look for the cuissenaire rods and the blue block thing. We do have a dry erase board but she is so resisting showing me her work that it is driving me batty. I can't help her if she won't show me her method and then she erases the work and asks if the answer is right. Math was not a good subject in ps either but she made decent grades in ps math. She would just squeak through and not really get the concepts. We spent a lot of time this summer catching her up to grade level concepts. Now that we are on grade level work it seems that she melts down. She is the one who was bawling yesterday to buy a new math book. This math is too hard. She wanted the public school math. I do have a R&S Math 3 book that could help her cement her math facts, but I don't want to quit Singapore. I really like Singapore math and think in the long run that her math will improve greatly using it. I just don't want to endure her giving up and bawling when it gets hard. Should I stop and do some R&S for a little while to cement the facts and then try again with Singapore? try R&S and Singapore at the same time? or just continue Singapore with new manipulatives? Thanks for all the advise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidbits of Learning Posted December 19, 2009 Author Share Posted December 19, 2009 My older son is very good in math and stumbled at the long division. Some moms from these boards gave me the advise to use a graph. I bought graph paper. I wrote the numbers in the boxes. Those boxes are great because they help me to line up the numbers, then the child can see the place value better. It worked nicely for him as a tool. I am using for my younger son too. Blessings in your homeschooling journey! Merry Christmas, Karen www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony I definitely need to get graph paper. She writes so small and it is so hard to see what she has done. Thanks for the suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidbits of Learning Posted December 19, 2009 Author Share Posted December 19, 2009 Long division is a process with many sub skills. If kids practice the sub skills till they are not hard, they can handle long division easier. The sub skills: (1) Multiplication facts to automaticity (2) Division facts to automaticity (3) Division with remainders DD struggled so much with long division. We stepped back and worked on these skills. Once she could handle short division with remainders without her head exploding, she moved seamlessly into long division. We did seem to jump into remainders pretty quickly. We only did a little of division that came out to a whole answer with double digits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kennic Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 (edited) If I remember correctly, the HIG's do emphasize using the base-10 blocks when learning the division steps. When my son did this section, we has the MUS blocks which were the same thing. He would get the out whenever he needed them, and go through the steps, making groups of hundreds first, replacing the remaining ones with tens, making groups of tens and so on. For quite a while. You could do it with the place-value discs instead, but the hundreds flat is easier to visualize as being hundreds than a disc with 100 on it. Then you can relate the physical steps with the physical hundreds, tens, and ones with the written steps. The written steps are only a way to record what is happening with the concrete steps. Eventually, then, he did not need the concrete, and understood what each of the steps in the algorithm meant, much better than memorizing some mnemonic for the steps or something that some people do. The concrete step is a very important one in the Primary Mathematics - the lessons and concepts are all supposed to be concrete to pictorial to abstract, and you don't have to get to the abstract necessarily in one lesson. The concrete are the base-10 type of manipulative, the pictorial are the pictures of the place-value discs, and the student can imagine them moving around, but maybe only if they have first been done concretely, and then, at the end, that is related to writing down the steps. Edited December 19, 2009 by Kennic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidbits of Learning Posted December 20, 2009 Author Share Posted December 20, 2009 I got a base ten starter kit at the school aid store. :) Along with a Singapore 3A math practice book! I am very excited to try again with the base ten blocks instead of the place value chips and unifix cubes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lgm Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 I've also found that understanding money is helpful in the transition from manipulatives to pictorial. Practice trading the dime for ten pennies, and the dollar coin for 10 dimes or 100 pennies and vice versa. Practice dividing a handul of dimes and pennies, with a bank to assist in trades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitten18 Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 I definitely need to get graph paper. She writes so small and it is so hard to see what she has done. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have anything helpful to add, except that I LOVE this site for making your own graph paper. http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/plain/ You can make really tiny squares or big squares. I have used it for all kinds of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidbits of Learning Posted December 21, 2009 Author Share Posted December 21, 2009 I don't have anything helpful to add, except that I LOVE this site for making your own graph paper.http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/plain/ You can make really tiny squares or big squares. I have used it for all kinds of things. Thanks for the graph paper link. We went back through the dvision in the HIG even though she had completed the exercises (and gotten most wrong) with the base ten blocks. We did the textbook part with the 9 or so problems at the bottom of the page. She got them right on her dry erase board while working with the base ten blocks. It did take her a long time to do the 9 problems, but she got them right and seemed to grasp how to do it with the blocks and then transfer what she got with the blocks into long division form. Today we will go back through with 3 digit division with the base ten blocks. Math is a struggle for her, but with the manipulatives and working through Singapore's method of teaching she seems to have aha moments. I appreciate all of the advise and plan to have her do some money cashing in also to help with breaking things down from hundreds to tens to ones. I am so glad that I posted and didn't panic and start searching for new math curriculum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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