MM Telling Time chapter

[bluemongoose]

This is a tale of two girls, from two different families, and two different ages. This tale is about MM 2A and the Telling Time (clocks) chapter. This tale is being told to see if anyone else can relate, or if these are two isolated experiences.

 

Girl #1 (7.5yo at the time of this story) is very very bright in many areas. She was using PS curriculum at home for 1st and 2nd grade. The PS had her skip Kindy. After 2nd grade her mother decided that this was no longer working for her and took her out of the PS/HS program that provided the curriculum. She started her on MM 2A because she felt that the 2nd grade PS book did not adequately cover 2nd grade math. Everything was going well until they hit the Telling Time chapter...duh duh duh:tongue_smilie:...now it was tears and gnashing of teeth. Questions were asked by the mom about this chapter that seems so much more difficult that the previous one. Girl suffered through the chapter, and has now breezed through the rest of 2A.

 

Girl #2 (5.75yo at the time of this story) also very very bright in many areas. She used Singapore EB for Kindy at 4y and MM1 and Singapore 1 as dual spines at 5yo. As for the double spines...All math and Science decisions are deferred to Daddy-the math and science guru...ask him! Anyway, the Telling Time brought very minor frustration in the MM1 book and none in the Singapore book. Then she moved on to MM2 and Singapore 2. Along comes MM's Telling Time chapter and like clockwork (pun intended;)) out come the tears and gnashing of teeth. Girl #2's mom remembers the questions from Girl #1's mom just a few weeks before and now agrees...this chapter seems to be so much more difficult than the rest of the 2A book! The girl has been enjoying the MM book now that the chapter has been completed and forgotten, the sun has come back out, and things are lovely.

 

BUT-now I have wonderings in my brain.

 

1) Why does this chapter seem so much more difficult than the rest of the 2A book.

 

2) Why not put it at the end of the 2B book where the student might be more able to handle something that difficult?

 

3) Did the girls (especially girl 2 who seemed to get more answers wrong in this chapter than girl 1) learn enough to have it stick, or will they still need to struggle through it at a later date?

 

4) Is struggling through it later a problem, it is just telling time after all, not a huge building block of basic arithmetic....

 

5) Has anybody else experienced something similar with this chapter, or are these two girls just lacking in natural ability to tell time:tongue_smilie:.

 

 

P.S. Ya, I know this is goofy, I just woke up and have not had breakfast yet, so I am in a weird mood.:D

Edited January 21, 2011 by bluemongoose

[TKDmom]

I haven't used MM, yet, but I don't consider telling time an integral part of a math sequence. Yes, it needs to be learned. But if it's too hard right now, maybe you should set it aside and pull it out at the end of the year. Or next year. Just as long as you come back to it at some point.

 

My 4th grade dd just went through the time section in SM 3B, and she hated it. It was hard for her. I think she still needs more reinforcement before telling time becomes automatic for her (we need to get more analog clocks in our house ;)).

[ChandlerMom]

Telling time is an odd thing, often challenging to kids, and in the age of digital clocks, not so important. I think developing an understanding of time and maybe compute elapsed time well by 6th grade is fine. Let their natural desire to figure out how long until they get to do X (tv, dinner, activity) drive their learning of time. Kids aren't surrounded by analog clocks like I was 30 years ago!

 

7.5yo DD is doing division of decimals but still struggles with telling time with an analog clock (learned with a different curriculum, so I don't think it is at all unique to MM). If she still doesn't get it when I'm teaching her calculus in high school, I'll take time out to nail it down. :D Until then, I wouldn't endure tears for the sake of covering it. IMO it is such a small part of math an inevitably they learn it (working in a job and wanting to know how long until lunch will teach them if not else! :lol:) I'm more into gentle exposure and short bursts of practice. I don't want them to hate math over it!

 

ETA: I remember learning it in K, but back them you had to teach kids time early esp in the classroom to function. Now, with digital clocks and the hs setting, it just isn't as important IMO to teach time before they know multiples of 15, for example, or subtracting/adding 2-digit #'s. If you think about the skills required to tell time, they are WAY beyond when they are taught. :p

Edited January 21, 2011 by ChandlerMom

[mommy4ever]

We are going to be doing this chapter in 1-2 weeks. I looked at it, it doesn't seem to be a huge stretch, but then she hasn't sat down with it to do it. If it's too frustrating, I'll push it back. No big deal.

 

A thought, Maria is great at responding to concerns, so I'd email her and see if she has any suggestions.

[*Jessica*]

My son just finished level 1 of MM and he also had a hard time with the telling time chapter. He breezed through the rest of the book, but we had a lot of frustration over that single topic. I'm thinking that with my other children I will introduce the topic, but if they seem excessively frustrated we will skip it and try covering it again at the end of the year, or possibly even a year later.

[bluemongoose]

Telling time is an odd thing, often challenging to kids, and in the age of digital clocks, not so important. I think developing an understanding of time and maybe compute elapsed time well by 6th grade is fine. Let their natural desire to figure out how long until they get to do X (tv, dinner, activity) drive their learning of time. Kids aren't surrounded by analog clocks like I was 30 years ago!

 

I don't want them to hate math over it!

 

 

 

 

This is what I was thinking. I mean, I wouldnt keep on going it DD didnt understand the chapter on subtraction, because you just cant move on in that area until she knows it, but telling time... It is important to be able to tell time yes, but have it as mastered as the MM2A chapter teaches it to be, I just cannot imagine it happening at that level. It seems like work for a much later level!

 

We did complete the problems to the best of her ability, but I know that later we will have to go back and rehash it. I let it go for now, because like you, I dont want her to hate math over it...it just doest seem worth it!

[abrightmom]

My very bright second grader bogged down with the Clocks chapter in MM 2A. I set it aside and we'll hit it again at the end of the school year. It was a relief to us both because the math train started rolling again at a comfortable clip. :D

[hollyhock]

My son had some difficulty with that chapter in 2A but he did get it and worked through it. He is now doing 3A and did the telling time chapter recently. I found that the 3A chapter isn't that much more difficult than the 2A chapter. So if they had trouble with it the first time, at least they will have another go at it the next year.

[5Wizards]

My oldest didn't learn to tell time until this year. I bought the MM blue and she did it all in a week. Easy at 9, not so much earlier for her. :)

[stripe]

I think it's interesting that in India, they put the emphasis initially on before/after and putting things in a sequence, THEN on time of day (morning/afternoon/night), days of the week, months of the year, and seasons, and therefore put off actually telling time (looks like it's in class iv, which is apparently equiv to US grade 3, with time to the hour one year before). I'd just integrate it into daily life by just mentioning the time in conversation (not like a drill!). Make sure you have an analog clock, though. If you've only got digital ones, it's hard to get practice.

Edited January 21, 2011 by stripe

[bluemongoose]

My son had some difficulty with that chapter in 2A but he did get it and worked through it. He is now doing 3A and did the telling time chapter recently. I found that the 3A chapter isn't that much more difficult than the 2A chapter. So if they had trouble with it the first time, at least they will have another go at it the next year.

 

Well that is good to know!:)

[bluemongoose]

I think it's interesting that in India, they put the emphasis initially on before/after and putting things in a sequence, THEN on time of day (morning/afternoon/night), days of the week, months of the year, and seasons, and therefore put off actually telling time (looks like it's in class iv, which is apparently equiv to US grade 3, with time to the hour one year before). I'd just integrate it into daily life by just mentioning the time in conversation (not like a drill!). Make sure you have an analog clock, though. If you've only got digital ones, it's hard to get practice.

 

Very interesting! She understands before/after, sequences, times of day, seasons, and the hour and min to the 5s on the clock.

 

She still doesnt have the days of the week or months of the year in order yet.

 

The struggle she had in the MM clocks chapter was the "it is 6:30, what time will it be in 5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 4 hours etc." or the ---- Past and ------ Till. Also the "Joe got up at 6:15am and went to bed at 10:50pm, how long was he awake?" She really struggled with these, but you can show her an analog clock and she can tell you the time to the closest 5 min. She has an analog watch and our schoolroom has an analog clock.

[Mom2absh]

I think that this is a chapter that needs more time (ha!) to work through than others. The material is rather dense - Maria didn't break it down into the easy-to-digest pieces she uses in other chapters. I think this one also needs manipulatives - Maria often includes pictures and helps, but not so much here.

 

When my dd worked through this chapter, we would do only one page at a time, sometimes only a section of a page. We had a play clock to use, one that moved the hour hand as the minute hand was moved. We also looked at the real clock a lot. We would work for 20 minutes at the most, and then put it away 'til the next day.

 

I think the information is very important - being able to read a digital clock is not the same as understanding how much time has passed, and this chapter works a lot on how much time has passed or will pass. It's very "real world" information.

 

I hope some of this was helpful!

 

J

[bluemongoose]

I think that this is a chapter that needs more time (ha!) to work through than others. The material is rather dense - Maria didn't break it down into the easy-to-digest pieces she uses in other chapters. I think this one also needs manipulatives - Maria often includes pictures and helps, but not so much here.

 

When my dd worked through this chapter, we would do only one page at a time, sometimes only a section of a page. We had a play clock to use, one that moved the hour hand as the minute hand was moved. We also looked at the real clock a lot. We would work for 20 minutes at the most, and then put it away 'til the next day.

 

I think the information is very important - being able to read a digital clock is not the same as understanding how much time has passed, and this chapter works a lot on how much time has passed or will pass. It's very "real world" information.

 

I hope some of this was helpful!

 

J

 

Yes it is, and yes I agree with you. I think in all my ramblings, the point I was trying to get across is maybe-as valid and important as this information is- it might be presented in too deep a form too early as compared to the rest of the info in the book. It just seemed to be too much for the age group it is meant for. I am glad that a pp shared that the 3rd year book rehashes it, so maybe by then she will be able to work through it with more confidence. As of right now, I tried with the manipulative clock like you did and we tried breaking it up, but the tears and frustration continued to build. I came to a point where I decided that maybe this should be put aside for now. Then I posted here because I wanted to know if I was crazy for thinking this, if others had also experienced it, if others felt that maybe this chapter was a bit much as well.

Edited January 21, 2011 by bluemongoose

[babysparkler]

My son had some difficulty with that chapter in 2A but he did get it and worked through it. He is now doing 3A and did the telling time chapter recently. I found that the 3A chapter isn't that much more difficult than the 2A chapter. So if they had trouble with it the first time, at least they will have another go at it the next year.

 

This is what I was going to say about my dd. We ended up giving up on that 2A clock chapter all together and moved on. She just started into 3A clocks this week (and I must confess, I was nervous)... a completely different story! She is breezing through it, and I don't exactly know why. It has just clicked this time around.

[bluemongoose]

This is what I was going to say about my dd. We ended up giving up on that 2A clock chapter all together and moved on. She just started into 3A clocks this week (and I must confess, I was nervous)... a completely different story! She is breezing through it, and I don't exactly know why. It has just clicked this time around.

 

This is reassuring thank you!:001_smile:

[stripe]

The struggle she had in the MM clocks chapter was the "it is 6:30, what time will it be in 5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 4 hours etc." or the ---- Past and ------ Till. Also the "Joe got up at 6:15am and went to bed at 10:50pm, how long was he awake?" She really struggled with these, but you can show her an analog clock and she can tell you the time to the closest 5 min. She has an analog watch and our schoolroom has an analog clock.

This is complicated though, so I don't blame her for taking her time (no pun intended) to sort it out.

 

Maybe you could also work this in to your daily life then, somehow, like "Dad will be home in 45 minutes," or "Grandma's flight arrives at 5:00," and then discuss how much time you need to allow to get to the airport, or if it's 4:15 and the chocolate chip cookies need to bake for 8 min, we will check them at what time? Just to see how it comes up and strategies you actually use.

[bluemongoose]

This is complicated though, so I don't blame her for taking her time (no pun intended) to sort it out.

 

Maybe you could also work this in to your daily life then, somehow, like "Dad will be home in 45 minutes," or "Grandma's flight arrives at 5:00," and then discuss how much time you need to allow to get to the airport, or if it's 4:15 and the chocolate chip cookies need to bake for 8 min, we will check them at what time? Just to see how it comes up and strategies you actually use.

 

All good ideas, thanks!:)

[boscopup]

Thanks for this thread! We'll be starting 2A in a couple weeks. We breezed through the 1B clocks chapter, but it was only going to hour and half hour, and he'd done all that in Saxon 1 already at school, so he knew it well. He just had to learn the terminology of "half past", which he picked up quickly.

 

I'll watch for signs of struggle when we get to it in 2A and just move on to something else for a bit if we need to. It probably wouldn't hurt to break the chapter up a bit, like one page one day, then another chapter the rest of the week, then come back to the next page of clocks?

[mommy4ever]

Well, I thought I'd post again. We are into this unit now, about 3/4 done, and she seems to grasp it. I'm not hitting a lot of resistance, but I do sit with her and make sure she is dealing with it. She seems to think it is fun to do. Perhaps it is all about being ready and willing to do it. She loves to read the clocks. She is getting better and better at it. So she is grasping it.