Do you have your child do ALL the questions in Math Mammoth?

[Halcyon]

My younger has a pretty good grasp now on subtraction and addition up to 12 after working through the first 70 pages of MM1A. I looked ahead and there's 40 MORE PAGES of subtraction and addition :confused: Seems overkill to me (we're used to Singapore which we use for older. The only reason we're using MM for the younger is I don't have the Year 1 books, and MM was cheaper, and he liked the sample pages. We plan on moving to SM in Year 2).

 

Do others skip pages in MM? What does Maria recommend?

[mnemom]

We are at exactly the same point (about page 74 of 1A Math Mammoth). I think if your child truly hates the repetitiveness, then you could pick and choose which pages to do. But I do think that drilling the addition and subtraction facts is important until your child knows it cold. So I would probably do them unless your child really resists (or already knows the facts 100%). Otherwise you could drill in other ways, with games, etc. until the facts are memorized.

[delaney]

Funny you should ask this. I was just reading, Echo: A Call to Home Centered Education, and this topic was addressed. She said that when you cut back on the repetition you often later find yourself wondering why they struggle with certain things. I am not familiar with the curricula but I am thinking that maybe they do it for a reason so maybe cut it into different chunks so that it gets done without driving you both nuts? I find the temptation to cross off Saxon problems and then I think....no....too bad.:D

[abrightmom]

:001_smile: I looked for it but couldn't find it . . . Maria does say somewhere that she purposefully provides more problems than are probably needed. Some sections have many problems of the same type. I cross out half for my DS8 who is doing well with math. If he shows mastery of the material we move on. If he misses stuff he does them all (goes back and does the problems I had crossed out). The other recommendation she made was to save some of those problems for review if needed later on. I am NOT doing this for my young first grader though. We ARE using all of the problems for first grade though. I am only crossing out problems for the 2nd grader. :D

 

If I can find where she said this I'll link to it. I checked the FAQ on the MM site but didn't find it there.

[ChandlerMom]

From the MM User's Guide (pacing section):

"When you have a page or two filled with lots of similar practice problems ("drill") or large sets of problems, feel free to only assign 1/2 or 2/3 of those problems. If your child "gets it" with less amount of exercises, then that is perfect! If not, you can always assign him/her the rest of the problems some other day. In fact, you could even use these unassigned problems the next week or next month for some additional review."

 

However, I agree with the PP who said to do as much as the student will tolerate unless they know their addition and subtraction facts cold. the concept is easier to "get" than getting the facts down pat. Also, I think a lot of early math facts need to be "gotten" at different levels and in different ways over time and that just takes time. If you cut the drills, you might instead do some of the problems with manipulatives. With my eldest, we practiced multiplication and division using "bunny math": feeding imaginary bunnies with carrots (dividing them, seeing how many we needed, etc). I've fed a lot of leggos to a lot of stuffed animals! :lol: If she ever got stuck on a problem, I'd rephrase it in terms of bunnies and carrots and she'd get it right away.

[boscopup]

I know I read somewhere that you don't have to do all the problems either. I usually assign only half the problems. I make sure we do all of the fact drills (the oral part), and I make sure all of the word problems are done, but the other stuff, I just assign half usually and that's been fine so far.

 

Looking ahead, I think 1B gets a lot better, as there is more variety available. In 1A, only so much has been taught, so there isn't a whole lot of variety, as there isn't much to cycle through for review.

 

I did skip the subtraction chapter and just went to the addition/subtraction combo chapter, and my son has been fine with that. Though he's also getting addition/subtraction facts via Saxon at school.

[Whereneverever]

Yes, we do all the problems. My DD knows her facts after so many of them, and the repetition is increasing her speed.

[robsiew]

There are certainly different views on this. I used to have my kids skip some, but recently have gone to making them do all of them after reading The Core. Yes, it is repetitive, however most of math is! I have bright kids that do quite well, but I find that they can also make "silly" mistakes. I also think it would be better to over drill right now than have to go back and redo things because we didn't do them well enough the first time. Mine also need work with speed so if they complain that they have to do a lot of the same type of problem I encourage them to work on their speed. I usually respond something like..."That is great that those are so easy for you! Math should go really fast for you today!" :D

[skueppers]

My younger has a pretty good grasp now on subtraction and addition up to 12 after working through the first 70 pages of MM1A. I looked ahead and there's 40 MORE PAGES of subtraction and addition :confused: Seems overkill to me (we're used to Singapore which we use for older. The only reason we're using MM for the younger is I don't have the Year 1 books, and MM was cheaper, and he liked the sample pages. We plan on moving to SM in Year 2).

 

Do others skip pages in MM? What does Maria recommend?

 

We're not using the Light Blue curriculum (we're using the Blue series), but I've had my daughter do almost every page so far in Addition 1, Subtraction 1, and Place Value 1. My understanding is that 1A is roughly equivalent to Addition 1 and Subtraction 1. It looks like where we are in Subtraction 1 is around page 78 of MM 1A.

 

Looking ahead at the rest of Subtraction 1, I will probably have my daughter do all of it unless it gets horribly boring for her. Up to this point, she's been happy to do it. We do drill outside of Math Mammoth, so I'm not concerned that she won't memorize all of the relationships.

 

One thing I find is that although the actual math facts being practiced are repetitive, the curriculum approaches them in different ways. I think it's worth knowing what to do when confronted with different kinds of problems, so even if my daughter already knows what 6-2 is, I don't really view all of the problems that use that fact as being primarily about solving 6-2.

 

Since we use the Blue series, I generally present her with a choice every day between doing a page from Subtraction 1, or a page from Place Value 1. If she goes a few days and doesn't choose one or the other, I have her do a page from the one she's been less interested in. Some days she opts to do a page from each, or an extra page in the one she was working on. I also sometimes offer her the chance to do a page from some other Math Mammoth book (Early Geometry lately) or another math activity once she's done her first math page.

[abrightmom]

There are certainly different views on this. I used to have my kids skip some, but recently have gone to making them do all of them after reading The Core. Yes, it is repetitive, however most of math is! I have bright kids that do quite well, but I find that they can also make "silly" mistakes. I also think it would be better to over drill right now than have to go back and redo things because we didn't do them well enough the first time. Mine also need work with speed so if they complain that they have to do a lot of the same type of problem I encourage them to work on their speed. I usually respond something like..."That is great that those are so easy for you! Math should go really fast for you today!" :D

:001_smile::001_smile::001_smile: I really like this attitude and approach.

[Halcyon]

Thanks for all the replies. My son hasn't been complaining, but he knows his facts far better than my older did at that age. I would say he gets 1 wrong on every page of MM and he does them pretty fast. I think I am going to assign just 2/3rds of the problems on each page. He's working through 2 pages a day now that he's almost memorized the facts (he slowed down when he was starting subtraction), so my guess is we can get through the remaining pages in a couple of months.

 

I have to say though, I think there are too many problems for kids who "get it" fairly quickly. I don't drill and kill my older, except for multiplication when we used Times Tales (not exactly drill...) and he knows his facts pretty much cold. Revisiting them frequently really helps for him, so we do a 'basic facts' review at least once a week in addition to his regular math.

 

Since he is young, I think we'll just keep plugging along.

[sleepymommy]

We are on page 76 right now and I thought about just skipping chapter 3 altogether and coming back to it as review later on.

 

But after today's disastrous homeschool day, I'm rethinking. Some days he just breezes through everything and it's too easy, but other days I find myself needing to self medicate with my JD stash! I just can't get what he's not getting after I've explained it 9 different ways over and over again.:svengo: But I digress..

 

Maria does say that one should skip over areas as they see fit and/or come back as review later if needed.

 

I think going through at least parts of it would be a good ego boost for ds though. He gets so excited when he knows everything, so we may just do it for that reason alone.

[walkermamaof4]

I handed the whole set of copies of MM1 in a binder to ds (then 6 or 7) and told him he'd get a prize at the end of every chapter and a big present at the end of the program. I kid you not, I think he whipped through it in about 2 weeks. So, what I am saying is, can you entice him to complete every page but move at a fast pace if it is so easy for him? This is how it was with my ds. Now we are doing MM2 and I asked him to please just do 2 pp per day bc/ with my other kids needing help, I can't keep up with him. So he can use dreambox and stick to 2 a day.

[Momling]

I have been in the same place. With my older daughter, I had her skip problems when I felt she understood it. The problem came on other lessons when she decided that she shouldn't have to do all of it and began whining about why couldn't she skip *these* problems. It became torturous for me. With my younger daughter we just go through every single problem. When I don't think she needs it, I take out a complete page from her binder without her noticing it.

 

The older is now thriving in TT on the computer where she can no longer whine to me about not wanting to do *all* the problems.