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Did you naturally learn mental math?


Tabrett
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I am doing SP 1a with dd. It is having her learn to make ten then add the ones. 9+6=......10+5=15.

 

I was not taught this way, I was taught to "count up". As I got older I started doing it "naturally". It seemed a faster way to add in my head. I was probably in middle school when I started doing it "naturally", which correlates to the logic stage as it is very logical way to add.

 

If you didn't learn to do math the SP way, did you naturally start to do it that way as you grew older?

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No, I never started doing it that way naturally. I tend to get mentally set in one way of doing things, and don't cast about for more efficient approaches. It wasn't until I started looking into math teaching methods for homeschooling that I started trying these kinds of alternative approaches.

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I faintly remember touchmath junk from my ps days. :glare:

 

I don't know if it was explicitly taught or not (I'm guessing I must have had a couple good teachers early on too b/c I learned solid phonics as well.), but I have made 10's to add & subtract since I can remember.

 

When teaching this to my dc, I set a 6 rod and a 9 rod next to a 10 rod, and then ask them to find 6+9. ds7 can visualize this without actually placing the rods down. I don't think this concept would be as natural to him without the rods.

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Yes, but sometimes I don't do it the most efficient way - probably because it was never explicitly taught to me. Mainly it's with multiplication or division that I'll figure it out in an unconventional way, then realize 10 minutes later that there was an easier way to do it in my head. lol Oh well, I still figure my methods are faster than the conventional way, so whatever. :tongue_smilie:

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I didn't learn it that way in school, but I did figure it out later by myself. I calculated up tips, discounts, purchases, etc. in my head because I had to -- I only had a certain amount of money and had it make it last. Necessity forced me to do what all the boring school lectures in the world hadn't done -- do math quickly in my head and enjoy it.

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I read Marilyn Burn's little brown school books (I Hate Math! and Math for Smarty Pants, as well as one (by someone else, I think) about time) as a kid, and some Martin Gardner books. I played with numbers in my head a lot and learned no tricks in school that I remember. I attended a montessori school for elementary school. I remember nothing in particular beyond doing very long addition problems with huge numbers, which was nothing to write home about.

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If you didn't learn to do math the SP way, did you naturally start to do it that way as you grew older?

 

Only in my dotage, as the young one has been learning it, I have been too. I'm much better now at mental math than I ever was previously, but I know the 6 year year old will pass me sooner than later if I don't watch out :D

 

Bill (old dog, new tricks :tongue_smilie:)

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No, it never became natural or intuitive for me. I was always very good in math but I really think that not being able to do the quick mental math hurt me in my SAT, ACT, and GRE tests. I could do all the math, just not quickly and in my head. That is why I'm insisting that my kids learn it while they are young.

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I naturally learned mental math, and ds has done the same. I truly think it is genetic in our case. My father was better in applied math than anyone else I ever knew, and he only had a fifth grade education (he grew up as a sharecropper, so he didn't attend school a whole lot even during those five years). He could figure up the cost (including tax) of an entire cart full of groceries to the penny before the cashier could. Also, even though he was never taught how to figure area, volume, output and profit maximization, etc., he figured it out on his own. Math just made sense to him.

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I was not taught that way in school, and never figured it out on my own. I considered myself 'good' at math, but I am realizing now that I do math strictly using algorithms-I don't even know why they work! I am learning that now-as I am teaching my own children. otoh -My 9yo mathy, engineer-ish son-however-seems to do these mental math shortcuts intuitively. My dh and I are often amazed at how his mind works. My husband also uses mental math shortcuts that he was not taught in school. I think some people get it automatically and some just don't---so it's better to teach it. Hth.

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I remember naturally coming up with the making tens or otherwise manipulating numbers to add and subtract them. I wasn't taught that way, it's just the strategy I came up with because I couldn't seem to "just memorize it" like they wanted me to. I remember trying to explain to my parents and teachers how I came up with an answer and being scolded and told that if I would just memorize the facts it would be much easier. Problem was, straight memorizing the facts wasn't working for me. Just numbers and nothing to manipulate just confused me. I just learned to not tell people how I got my answers or tell them what they wanted to hear not how I actually did it. The first time I saw Singapore Math, I finally felt like I was doing math right all along. It was exactly what I had always done on my own.

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I don't remember ever NOT having strategies (making tens included) to do mental math. I don't remember being taught them, though. I do remember my mother telling me when I was very, very young that "you need to be able to do it in your head".

 

(I was also the kid who couldn't simply accept an algorithm and plug numbers. If I couldn't break it down to know why it worked and how it could be applied, my brain seemed to reject it as useless. I know, I was weird. I still am. :D )

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