taking time off to get more done - sharing stories

[naturalmom]

For about a month, I've quit textbook math with my nearly 8yo. He's halfway through Singapore 5A, and I thought we'd stop before the geometry topics. He just wasn't excited about math any more, and dreaded it most days. (We did it about 3 days/week.)

 

Two weeks after we stopped the textbook, he invented a math riddle:

"Pick 2 numbers that are 2 apart from each other (8 and 10). Multiply them (80). Find the average and multiply it by itself (average is 9; multiply by itself: 81). The average will be 1 more." He figured out it works with zero and fractions as well.

 

We started reading Penrose the Mathematical Cat last week, and he's loving it. We read a few chapters a year or so ago, but now it is the highlight of his day to read a chapter.

 

I took him out for an iced coffee (decaf!) yesterday, and we read Penrose, and went through a few chapters of a Zaccaro book.

 

Tonight before bed he started writing numbers in various number systems. He picked 3110, and wrote it in binary (that's from Penrose!), base 10 (the one I can do easily), and Roman numerals.

 

This is so much fun I hate to go back to the textbook! His complaint in 5A was that "every book starts with the same things", meaning whole numbers, multiplying and dividing. I know we'll have to go back to the book, but I'm really enjoying the freedom of letting him have more choice in what he does, and when he does it. I'm hoping to wait until he asks to do the textbook again. If we get to fall, and he hasn't asked, I suppose I'll have to bring it out anyway. But maybe he'll be refreshed enough to enjoy it again!

 

Anyone else have similar experiences of letting go of a curriculum for a time in order to allow a child to take off on his/her own? The start of summer seems a good time for this.

[Julie in Monterey]

Take the time off and let him enjoy and explore math. He is certainly on the right track. He is a good 2 years ahead in math so he won't fall behind. At this point, you want to foster that love of math. That needs to be more important than rapid acceleration.

 

You need to decide if you want to keep going further or go into more depth. Sounds like currently you are taking the depth route. Going in depth can be very stimulating for a gifted child.

 

Trust your instincts.

 

Julie in Monterey

[....]

Ya' know...my friend bought those Sir Cumference books for geometry and her son really liked those also. It was like a storybook that talked about the different geometry terms.

 

We're starting 3a soon...ugh. My daughter is NOT going to be a mathematician when she grows up. :D

[Amber in AUS]

Woohoo, sounds like he is enjoying his numbers again :) Maybe you could look at Life of Fred ???

[Colleen in SEVA]

We have done something similar with B. When he would get to a point where he would need a "brain break" from Singapore, we would take a break and do Fred, or math puzzles, or Calculadders, or nothing.

 

Actually, he reached the point in 6B with the harder word problems in January, and we haven't gone back to it yet. We might revisit it in a couple of years, but right now his brain just can't wrap all the way around those particular problems (OK, I'll admit, my brain struggles a little as well).

[Jen in PA]

This is exactly how it works with my DD. With each level in Singapore, she gets about 90% of the material with no problem, and then she will just become very resistant to some new topic as it is introduced. I will touch on it briefly, figuring we'll go into it in more depth on the next pass. And then, without exception, I find that she understands that concept perfectly well after a little break from it. We school year-round but don't do all subjects full-force during the entire year. It always seems to me that she manages to learn at least as much about a subject when we aren't studying it as when we are!

[Guest]

Because my daughter had severe dysgraphia as a young child, we did nearly all of our math like this. As a result she created lots of riddles and problems that I wrote down, and I made her a book of other riddles and logic problems found from various sources. We played a ton of games and read a lot of great books; the Sir Cumference books we found when she was very young but she still liked them and would act them out at around age ten. Marilyn Burns has a lot of wonderful books at http://www.mathsolutions.com which are in categories such as math with picture books, math and non-fiction, algebraic thinking, and math replacement units (these cover standard material but with activities and a few problems in depth rather than pages of standard workbook-type problems). Because she had such problems with writing we did a whole lot of mental math.

 

By 8th grade my daughter was doing very well with advanced algebra from a standard textbook; but sadly, the early joy of math as a kind of intellectual play is gone, and I don't know how to break up this level of math as easily as I could when she was younger. I had her working through a cryptography book for a bit but she is now disenchanted with all math, sadly. It's been the result of the textbook system. I'm still looking for ways to counter this.

[Truscifi]

Ds loves Singapore for the most part, but he absolutely detests the review at the beginning of each book. He will flat refuse to do multi column addition and subtraction at times. He doesn't need much repetition anyway, so I let him do only 1/2 to 1/3 of the problems on any given page in the workbook this year, then when he finished early I was having him go back and fill in the rest of the problems one page at a time for review. It got to be such a chore that I eventually gave up, and started his 'fun math' for the summer - we are using cuisinaire rods with the Exploring Math booklet that came with them. He loves it so much he asked if he could take it on vacation with him to show his cousins. :001_huh: I'm tempted to just do the review he needs with cuisinaire rods and skip that part in 3A when we start it this fall.

[naturalmom]

I do try to get through the first part of the book quickly, but it still feels tedious to him. We just do the Intensive Practice books, and even there he just does half of the problems.

 

Another benefit of the break for him is that it frees up time for me to work with my oldest, who isn't so keen on math and needs to do extra practice over the summer. So it's perfect for everyone:)