mystika1 Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Hi, My 8year old dd is finally done with MM2b and although I like it..well..it has been very hard getting her to the end of the book. I had to stop having her write in the books and do all problems on the white board cause the site of the book just had her in fits. Now the big question..should I continue this struggle or move on to something else. She honestly needs spiral. SM had her in tears also no matter how many times we stopped and reviewed..played games and so on. I have been thinking about CLE or Mathematical Reasoning. My dd likes cute pictures or color and would rather 3 or four pages with 5 or 6 problems per page rather than 1 page with 25 problems.(I think that is what caused the fits with MM) Any suggestions? Penny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Do you know why she didn't do well with MM or SM? My dd is very bright but she hates worksheets. She has done quite well with our switch to CSMP since there is much less written work. (But of course, that means I am teaching a math lesson every single day:glare:.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atozmom Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 CLE will actually send you one light unit for free if you call them. That way you can get a feel for it in person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystika1 Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 Do you know why she didn't do well with MM or SM?:glare:.) It seemed to me that she was just so confused with SM. It was very strange how one day the material clicked and she would breeze through then the next day (when we reviewed the same exact thing from the day before) she would scream and cry saying she just couldn't understand what to do. It's like she was a different kid or something. Nothing would stick. The way that the material is taught in SM left her hating math. I understand that kids will have to do things that they don't like but when my dd is yelling that she is stupid...I just couldn't continue no matter how great the program may be. We would review until we were both blue in the face to no avail. We stopped and played games for a while but as soon as we returned to it..she shut down completely. As far as MM goes..I like the way it teaches real understanding. I really believe that the layout of the pages is part of the problem for my dd. There are some pages(not all) that just look cramped with numbers so I tried to have my dd write the problems onto a notebook page instead. She would copy the problems incorrectly because she couldn't keep track of her place in the book because she said that the problems seemed squished together. So.. I then put one problem at a time on the white board for her to work through and that also worked ok for a bit. But... the appeal of that wore off for her and I can see her shutting down again. It is very frustrating. She started guessing instead of really trying to find the answer. Finally..a few days ago I let her do math the old fashioned way(like 157-39 with no fancy tricks)and she sat quietly completed all of the work with no fussing at all. What gives??? What do you do when your child knows all of the fancy mental math tricks and prefers to just plug in the numbers while mixing in a bit of mental math strategies here and there? Also..she is a spiral learner. She needs to do a little bit of time, money, measuring, add and sub and so on each day or she will forget it all. I just hate the idea of going into MM 3A knowing that I am going to have to do cartwheels to keep her from having meltdowns each day. One thing that does concern me is that while browsing through math workbooks at the bookstore I noticed several things that we have not covered yet. With us sticking to one topic at a time it kind of makes me feel behind a bit though I am not overly concerned about that. I really can't use more than one math with her because I have another child that I need to teach. My biggest problem is getting her to do math without crying through it. Sincerely, Penny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwg Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 What gives??? What do you do when your child knows all of the fancy mental math tricks and prefers to just plug in the numbers while mixing in a bit of mental math strategies here and there? :lol: I think mine does that when he is not interested in thinking. Not that that is bad...who doesn't need a break sometimes? Also..she is a spiral learner. She needs to do a little bit of time, money, measuring, add and sub and so on each day or she will forget it all. I just hate the idea of going into MM 3A knowing that I am going to have to do cartwheels to keep her from having meltdowns each day. Sincerely, Penny I would too! Have you bought MM3A? One thing is you don't have to do it in order- mix the pages up a bit, so you are doing some time, money, measuring, etc. Also, what has helped me so much with my son is Buddy Math http://letsplaymath.net/2009/04/06/buddy-math/ He went from almost daily tears to none. Of course, another program may be a better fit for her. Those were ideas just in case you wanted to tweak MM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotSoObvious Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 We LOVE CLE. It is gentle and thorough. But, just so you know, it does not have color or cute pictures. It IS however, very easy on the eyes- not so busy, good spacing, etc. I know a lot of people like Math Mammoth, but the layout of the pages drove me insane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 You're totally describing my 7 yo. He's a twin and they both had been doing MM2. His brother is on 2b and doing great. But this kid. Oyvay. He never made it out of 2a. I finally gave up and junked the MM for him. He also needs spiral, reteaching and all. And he also oddly likes drills and doing things more old fashioned and algorithmic style, as long as they don't take forever. I ended up junking almost everything for him and going back to Miquon as well as RightStart games and getting him a math notebook. Now I feel like we're all over the place and it's making me a little crazy, but he likes math again, is less anxious about it, and is doing a much better job with it. So... research and math philosophies be [expletive]. I'm just going to keep going for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama2Many4 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Another CLE math fan here! We tried to like MM so many times, but it just isn't for us. It's nice as a supplement maybe, but not a complete math program. Nobody thinks like that on a daily basis for math. It complicates even the simplest equation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JessReplanted Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 We LOVE CLE. It is gentle and thorough. But, just so you know, it does not have color or cute pictures. It IS however, very easy on the eyes- not so busy, good spacing, etc. I know a lot of people like Math Mammoth, but the layout of the pages drove me insane. :iagree: We switched to CLE math a few months ago, and my 8 year old is doing very well with it. I love the structure of it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystika1 Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 I would too! Have you bought MM3A? One thing is you don't have to do it in order- mix the pages up a bit, so you are doing some time, money, measuring, etc. Also, what has helped me so much with my son is Buddy Math http://letsplaymath.net/2009/04/06/buddy-math/ He went from almost daily tears to none. Of course, another program may be a better fit for her. Those were ideas just in case you wanted to tweak MM. Wow! This site is really good. I have printed up several things to try with my girls. Thanks, Penny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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