DS rejecting MEP

[desertmum]

As a new homeschooler I have second guessed myself many times. However when I found MEP I thought I struck gold. UK National curriculum based, plenty of manipulatives and games. What could go wrong? Well, for one, MEP seems to be designed for a classroom, not a single student. Many of the activities, such as clapping as children count do not go down well with my 4yo. When I cheerfully ask, "Ok, ready to clap as we count?" his little face goes blank. He completely looses interest when I ask him to do colouring (I think it was the lesson about "matching" and "colour x number of items" on a worksheet). He looks booored. I know MEP is a spiraling program but it doesn't seem to work for ds.

 

I tried looking into Mammoth Math but they don't seem to have books for K (UK Year 1).

Any thoughts? :bigear:

[stripe]

I skipped a lot of the early coloring. We did other things besides just clapping. I don't think it requires a crowd. You could do other things, like say "bong" and pretend to be striking the hours on a clock. Or whatever else.

 

I would also consider using the reception level for a 4 year old.

[boscopup]

It sounds to me like you're experiencing the "not ready for formal schooling" side of a 4 year old. ;)

 

In another year or two, MEP might go much better. If he's not wanting to do MEP, I doubt he'll want to do any formal program, and really, it's not necessary. He's clearly not asking to do it, so why bother? A 4 year old's math skills are easily acquired through daily living. Unless he's asking to do math, I wouldn't bother with a formal program. Just count things around the house: "Our family needs x plates for dinner tonight... one, two, three...", Let's read three books "one, two, three... We've read one, so we have two left..."

 

(and I say this as an engineer with a "gifted in math" son who balked at formal programs of any kind at age 4, but now loves Math Mammoth)

[Haiku]

When I cheerfully ask, "Ok, ready to clap as we count?" his little face goes blank. He completely looses interest when I ask him to do colouring (I think it was the lesson about "matching" and "colour x number of items" on a worksheet). He looks booored.

 

If he looks bored, he probably is bored. Maybe those types of activities don't really flip his switch. Maybe he is beyond coloring a certain amount of items. Maybe you just need to tweak how the material is presented. Does he already know the concepts you are presenting? That is a sure-fire path to math boredom.

 

Tara

[desertmum]

I skipped a lot of the early coloring. We did other things besides just clapping. I don't think it requires a crowd. You could do other things, like say "bong" and pretend to be striking the hours on a clock. Or whatever else.

 

I would also consider using the reception level for a 4 year old.

 

 

I am using MEP reception. The MM question related to next year (as in: if ds doesn't take to MEP I'll switch to MM next year).

[desertmum]

It sounds to me like you're experiencing the "not ready for formal schooling" side of a 4 year old. ;)

 

In another year or two, MEP might go much better. If he's not wanting to do MEP, I doubt he'll want to do any formal program, and really, it's not necessary. He's clearly not asking to do it, so why bother? A 4 year old's math skills are easily acquired through daily living. Unless he's asking to do math, I wouldn't bother with a formal program. Just count things around the house: "Our family needs x plates for dinner tonight... one, two, three...", Let's read three books "one, two, three... We've read one, so we have two left..."

 

(and I say this as an engineer with a "gifted in math" son who balked at formal programs of any kind at age 4, but now loves Math Mammoth)

 

I guess I am trying a formal program because he is supposed to learn to read signs like "greater than" or "less than" etc. and I have no idea how to teach him that unless he has worked through the program first. :confused: Personally I have no idea why a 4yo needs to read math signs so early on..but what do I know! Your idea of counting the plates to teach him simple addition and subtraction is great. Why didn't I think of that before???? :banghead:

[stripe]

Sorry I misunderstood.

 

I don't think it's mandatory to understand the > and < signs at age 4, but I think understanding the idea (if I give you three cookies, and me five, who has more) might be easier without the notation.

 

I'd look at Preparing Young Children For Math: A Book of Games by Claudia Zaslavsky. It's got a ton of great ideas for very little kids (more than Peggy Kaye's book, which has more at the level of the elementary aged child). This particular book of hers is out of print but easily and cheaply found online.

[boscopup]

My son had never seen </> signs before first grade. When I introduced it in Math Mammoth 1A, he understood it right away. He'd been doing "which is more" type things since age 2 or 3. Adding the symbol at age 6 was no big deal. I also have used MEP 2A with him without first using the other levels. It has not been a problem at all.

 

I can't think of any reason why a 4 year old needs to know any math symbols. Relax. I know that's hard to do with the first child. BTDT, and still doing it at times. ;)

[FO4UR]

Sometimes it's better to simply tweak a few exercises...but if it's a huge chunk of the program that is getting the :001_huh: then I would switch.

 

For learning the < and > and = signs, I played little games with my dc. I put down two paper plates ...and put beans or Cuisenaire rods (or other math manipulatives) on the paper plates. Then the child puts a 3x5 card with the appropriate sign in the middle of the plates. It's fun to imagine that the < and > signs are "greedy aligator" mouths wanting to eat the largest amount...and the = sign represents a confused "greedy gator" b/c both sides are the same. I know lots of people detest the "greedy gator" language, but putting some imaginative play to it made it come to life...after placing the sign becomes intuitive, we move to "less than, greater than, equal to." My dd5 just went through these lessons in the last month and it took her maybe a week to go from introducing the "greedy gator" to using the terms "greater than" and "less than." I do like MM. My 5yo is doing well with it. I do a bit of teaching with manips like the example above, and then she works the page.

 

That said, my 4.5yo hasn't start ANY real maths yet...he counts and works puzzles and tags along with his older siblings when he wishes. He is doing plenty of math informally, but he's just not ready for mommy-led seatwork.

[Haiku]

I know lots of people detest the "greedy gator" language

 

For the longest time (into adulthood, even :blush5: ), the only way I could remember which way those pesky symbols went was by imagining them as mouths waiting to eat the biggest amount! RightStart math introduced me to the idea that you put one dot by the smaller number and two by the larger and then connect the dots to form the symobol, so I no longer have to imagine a mouth. :D

 

Tara

[Wheres Toto]

I taught ds the hungry gator bit for < > - one day he decided the gator wasn't really that hungry and put all the symbols the wrong way. :tongue_smilie: I switched to telling him it pointed at the smaller number.

 

We played a form of War to learn the symbols. I laid out three cards <, > and =. We each had 1/2 a deck of cards (just the numbers) and would flip one over at the same time. He would then pick which symbol would go between them. If he was right, he got both cards.

[redsquirrel]

I just finished MEP reception and have started MEP year one with my just turned 6 year old. He turned 6 yesterday. Starting in september we did reception year. We did it every day (because he was older) and in November, we moved onto year 1. MEP reception year is made to be done a couple times a week with youngers, and last a whole year.

 

I am pretty sure (could be wrong) that we never encountered the < and > etc, signs until MEP year 1. Reception was mostly about working with in 1-5. It is super short, lessons took about 10 mins. You look at all those nicely coloured pictures of the family: Mum, Dad, Ann and Ben and talked about them. It was a lot of left and right, top and bottom and matching.

 

We did count things and "clap it out" but it was "how many balls do you see? Once you know, clap out the number" Or I had him jump or knock on the table.

 

If he is 4 I would just back off and focus on counting, one to one matching, dot to dots and other fun stuff. Some kids don't even start formal math until 6 and do just fine.

[FO4UR]

For the longest time (into adulthood, even :blush5: ), the only way I could remember which way those pesky symbols went was by imagining them as mouths waiting to eat the biggest amount! RightStart math introduced me to the idea that you put one dot by the smaller number and two by the larger and then connect the dots to form the symobol, so I no longer have to imagine a mouth. :D

 

Tara

 

:lol:Me too.

[stripe]

I am pretty sure (could be wrong) that we never encountered the < and > etc, signs until MEP year 1. Reception was mostly about working with in 1-5. It is super short, lessons took about 10 mins. You look at all those nicely coloured pictures of the family: Mum, Dad, Ann and Ben and talked about them. It was a lot of left and right, top and bottom and matching.

 

That was my recollection as well. Lots of fun games, too.

 

I did the number signs the RightStart way as Tara described. I found the hungry mouth thing weird and unnecessary.

[redsquirrel]

I never taught that to my elder son but he just taught it to his little brother, lol. It happend today in front of my eyes half and hour ago. There was a little bit of (expected) confusion by little brother over which sign to pick < or > . Big brother say "Hey, I just always reminded myself that a big hungry alligator will open his mouth to the bigger amount of stuff." So. That was that.

[desertmum]

Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions. It is very easy to stress over HS when you are a newbie. I always think I'm not pushing ds enough or that I am not doing enough. Maybe I misread MEP about the <> signs. Maybe I got that from the UK national curriculum website which seems to put a lot of emphasis on "early years development.":tongue_smilie:

[Ariston]

Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions. It is very easy to stress over HS when you are a newbie. I always think I'm not pushing ds enough or that I am not doing enough. Maybe I misread MEP about the <> signs. Maybe I got that from the UK national curriculum website which seems to put a lot of emphasis on "early years development.":tongue_smilie:

 

I started MEP 1 with my 6 year old...Reception wasn't even out yet. The only thing I can think of that he needed to know before Year 1 was counting and recognizing the numbers. There's a bit of writing too, but when it got to be too much I would just have him tell me the answers and I would write them for him. So yeah, I agree with the others that 4 is young and things will be fine if you back off and start up again later :)

[Ariston]

Oops, I'm sorry...I just realized how old this thread was. I was on here this morning searching through posts and forgot that I was not looking at recent ones.

[Rivka]

Wait, is something wrong with the greedy alligator?! I've ruined my daughter's math education! ;)

[FO4UR]

Wait, is something wrong with the greedy alligator?! I've ruined my daughter's math education! ;)

 

I was already to reply to this thread, and then saw that I already had.:lol:

[freerange]

Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions. It is very easy to stress over HS when you are a newbie. I always think I'm not pushing ds enough or that I am not doing enough. Maybe I misread MEP about the <> signs. Maybe I got that from the UK national curriculum website which seems to put a lot of emphasis on "early years development.":tongue_smilie:

 

Please, do yourself and your child a big favour. Do not look at the NC website. Add it to your barred list. You will both be much happier, and your DS will likely end up with a better education.

 

When you're ready for formal maths, either Math Mammoth or MEP would be great choices.