I'm going to do it again! (Buying Another Math Curriculum)

[Diviya]

Haha. Poor OP. Maybe next time give less background?

I don't think she ever said her son is stuck on place value and that's why she wants to switch programs. I think she said he loves doing math workbooks and so she wants something that moves slowly in a style that suits her/him to keep him happy and moving along at an appropriate pace.

I don't have much to offer. I didn't start working with my kids at home on math until age 4/5, and I started with singapore math kindergarten. Ive stuck with those ever since and been very happy with them, but they are pretty colorful and I recall you don't want that.

Fwiw, my kids were in a Montessori school from age 2 onwards and certainly did a lot of work with place value at age 3 and 4. It's part of the montessori primary program.

[blessedmom3]

Haha. Poor OP. Maybe next time give less background?

I don't think she ever said her son is stuck on place value and that's why she wants to switch programs.

 

Maybe she didn't say he got stuck on this post but if you click on her name, you'll see in a previous post that her little one did get stuck on a place value .

[Snowfall]

Haha. Poor OP. Maybe next time give less background?

I don't think she ever said her son is stuck on place value and that's why she wants to switch programs. I think she said he loves doing math workbooks and so she wants something that moves slowly in a style that suits her/him to keep him happy and moving along at an appropriate pace.

 

 

She said it in a prior post, and it seems logical that perhaps the reason she's wanting to switch from a program her son truly enjoys is because she believes it isn't "working" since he doesn't understand PV. Why else would someone essentially not allow their child to continue with a curriculum they say they love? The point everyone is trying to make is that if he loves it, there's no good reason to switch just because he doesn't understand everything. He's only three. Even advanced three-year-olds don't all understand place value. :)

[Crimson Wife]

you know, I really understand advanced kids. I have no problem with you using that level of work with your 3 year old if he gets it and enjoys it.

 

However if there is something he does not get I don't think the answer is to buy several other programs. I lost count of how many you already have. wow. and I love curricula and my kids used it young etc. but I would just keep working with it different ways with what you have.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

When I was using RS B with my oldest as a young K5er (October birthday), there were several topics where I simply had to "park" for a while until she got it. The RS games are great for this.

 

I wouldn't recommend the whole scripted RS program in your case but I would strongly encourage getting the card games kit, the place value tiles, and the base 10 tiles (or base 10 blocks).

 

Another good thing to try is the Family Math for Young Children book from the Lawrence Hall of Science. It has lots of fun hands-on math activities.

[ChandlerMom]

I'm not going to say not to do math with your child at 3.5yo. Toddlers do generally LOVE math -- some NOVA special I saw last year talked about a study where when you observe 3yos playing they spent something like 80% of their time engaged in "math" -- sorting, stacking, counting, etc. That same show talked about how traditional math ed killed that love within the first few years of formal curricula.

 

So, my only advice would be to make sure to encourage young mathaholics (like I was and my kids are) to explore the breadth and connections of mathematics, rather than conforming too much to a path or treating it like vocab and a set of procedures.

 

The structure of the brain itself is changing dramatically between 3 to 5 or so and that more than intellect will affect what they can learn and connections they can make 2 years from now. For one thing, parts are not as specialized, so there's a lot of rewiring occurring during these years. Not many people have memories before age 4 for a reason (even ask a 5 yo). Although the things learned before then are clearly retained, later recall will depend on continuous use and making new connections in the brain.

 

If you child knows their addition facts to 10, give them some legos and say "show me 4 plus 3". Or give them a problem like, "if I have 4 flowers and buy 3 more, how many will I have?" Keep using the "real world" as a touchstone. If they love worksheets, give them worksheets, but interact with them, use toys to act out some problems, well beyond the point at which they have their "math facts down", and above all encourage their love of math!

[stripe]

If you child knows their addition facts to 10, give them some legos and say "show me 4 plus 3". Or give them a problem like, "if I have 4 flowers and buy 3 more, how many will I have?" Keep using the "real world" as a touchstone. If they love worksheets, give them worksheets, but interact with them, use toys to act out some problems, well beyond the point at which they have their "math facts down", and above all encourage their love of math!

Claudia Zaslavsky's Preparing Young Children for Math (out of print but easy to find) [and Peggy Kaye's Games for Math] both have TONS of ideas for thoughtful math activities over a range of math, not simply arithmetic. Zaslavsky's has more for the very young, by the way, so I'd recommend that one for now.

 

I think it's VERY easy to think that real school requires workbooks or that games are not learning, or that a very young child should be doing lots of complicated stuff, and that is a topic that this thread has touched on, but I think is worth re-examining. You're not a slacker and neither is your child stupid if he's not doing and understanding 1st grade math at age 3. Really.

 

I think we think if a child understands addition to 5, then we need to rush to addition to 10, and then to 100, and then into the millions, instead of "sitting" at the bottom of the number line for a good long while and soaking it in. This was my biggest lesson from Liping Ma's book.

 

I totally changed the way I was doing math -- and I am a mathy person! -- with my six year old, who also likes math, because I felt that while he could fill in equations, he wasn't understanding the meaning very deeply, which I found troubling. We've gotten a lot of thinking out of MEP Y1 as a result.

 

There is no rush at this point. You won't be behind! You can do things that are fun AND educational, and truly, truly valuable, but it's normal to have trouble understanding place value, even at age 6. It will be advantageous to have your son really understand how math can be used in the real world instead of only as problems on a worksheet.

[Lovedtodeath]

Some children don't like to play all day, some children LOVE to learn, some children want to do math on worksheets, even some 3 year olds! My 3yr old is fine with CLE LA 1 right now and loving it, instead of pulling out his toys he pulls out his workbooks. He wants to do math and he loves it, he cried today because he doesn't want to stop CLE, but he'll be fine when we find something else. He is just not all that into hands-on learning, he much rather does it on paper.

 

- He knows his 1-10 additions

If he loves math, knows his facts and is not developmentally ready for place value I suggest that you move on to multiplication. DD had a very hard time with Place Value and borrowing, but multiplication and fractions are fun fun! Your MM blue series should have a ton of concepts to teach. In Kindergarten here in school they also do a lot of work with money. There are also developmental things that help with math... like visual perception. I just bought some books from McRuffy in which they draw pictures that are on Geoboards.

 

I wouldn't try to get over the place value hurdle, I would move on to something else that will be fun for him and beneficial for his future maths. :)