Earlybird SM

[roanna]

So don't laugh but just wondering at what age some of the mathy kids have started SM earlybird. I know it's for kindergarten but I looked at some of the samples the website gives and my daughter could do some of them now.

 

She's always begging to do school when I'm with my son. I give her plenty of hands on things and fun phonics games, play doh, dancing, reading to her etc.

 

The reason I ask about this is because she's always counting everything, bookshelf holes, letters in board books, etc. She can count to 20 with just an error or two, she understands 1 to 1 counting for objects, can say 2 or 3 and hold up the corresponding fingers when she wants something on her own initiative. She knows all her colors and a few shapes. She can speak just fine and is very verbal.

 

My son wasn't number oriented at this age so I don't know how to gage it. She's always looking for things to stimulate her so I didn't know when it would be ridiculous to introduce something like this. It would be more for stimulation than any sort of academic desire.

 

Thanks.

[nov05mama]

My son was 3 when we started using it. He's always been a very 'mathy' kid and begged to learn as well. He's 6 now and is working in Singapore 3A and Beast Academy 3B. You could always give it a try and put it away if you find you need to...just go with her flow! That's what I did with my DS...I never pushed it, but if he asked to do it, we would, so it was nice to have something available for him :) HTH!

[kiwik]

My just turned 3 year old likes to do workbooks. The problem is unless they can read they require a lot of input from you. This makes it very hard to concentrate on the older child's lesson.

[roanna]

Ok , she will be three in January so maybe between then and now I might try it.

My husband is a walking calculator so I wouldn't be surprised if she enjoyed math.

[Maus]

I bought Earlybird when my son was about three, and we started working through 1A orally. He loved it, but hung a little near the end where there is a unit about conservation of liquid volume. ("Tall skinny glass holds the same as low wide shallow bowl" kind of thing.) That seemed to require a certain cognitive breakthrough.

 

My first daughter saw big brother doing math and was only about two and a half when she started. She was very verbal, so it worked. Same hang up on the liquid unit.

 

I just found the book again, in a different box than it should have been. :glare: I showed it to my youngest about six months ago, when she was just a few months past two, and she did seem to understand the first few pages. I'm going to let her start again the next time we do math with the "big kids."

 

All three kids liked to do the same pages over and over more than moving on. Partially because of that, we never did 2A or 2B. Right about the time the big kids were ready to favor novelty over familiarity, they were also ready to jump right in to Primary 1A.

[melmichigan]

You might want to look at Essentials vs. EB. DD's did Essentials. I tried EB and quickly sold it and went back to Essentials.

[Maus]

You might want to look at Essentials vs. EB. DD's did Essentials. I tried EB and quickly sold it and went back to Essentials.

Essentials does seem to be the more popular of the two. I have them, as well, and my kids weren't ready for it, as Essentials requires writing. My kids were so young when they started that they were still at "scribbling" stage in writing. (My son has small motor skills issues, so even at almost 10, I still occasionally have to ask, "what number did you write here?" when I check his math.) Especially with my son, by the time he had enough control over his pencil for Essentials, he was more than ready for Primary.

[Embassy]

I started my daughter on Essentials A a couple months before her 4th birthday. We did about 20 minutes at a time a couple times a week and she finished the first book soon after she turned 4. I don't know if she is mathy. She does like math though.

[melmichigan]

Essentials does seem to be the more popular of the two. I have them, as well, and my kids weren't ready for it, as Essentials requires writing. My kids were so young when they started that they were still at "scribbling" stage in writing. (My son has small motor skills issues, so even at almost 10, I still occasionally have to ask, "what number did you write here?" when I check his math.) Especially with my son, by the time he had enough control over his pencil for Essentials, he was more than ready for Primary.

 

We use number stamps until they are ready to write easily. :)

[KAR120C]

We use number stamps until they are ready to write easily. :)

Number stamps, and tiny blank stickers that I had written numbers on for him so he could stick them on... Like this kind. I would fill in a couple sheets' worth so he had lots to choose from and didn't need me to jump in too often.

 

We actually started Earlybird when DS was 2. I didn't mean to start that early, but we were somewhere that I could buy the books at a shop (and look at them first!), and I figured I was buying ahead. I wasn't. He plowed right through 1A in a few days, and the whole series in a few months.

 

That was more than a decade ago... so I have no idea how the program may have changed since then!

[Greenmama2]

Three for both mine - like a lot of the other posters it seems. DD may not have been quite three, I don't remember.

[Dinsfamily]

You might want to look at Essentials vs. EB. DD's did Essentials. I tried EB and quickly sold it and went back to Essentials.

 

:iagree: I did EB with ds8 at 3yo and it was too easy plus we didn't like the format. I used EM with ds6 and liked it much better. I started EM with him at 4.5 and he isn't mathy like my oldest.

[La Texican]

I bought kindergarten essential math 1a + 1b from the Singapore site. *I bought 1a - 4b on the swap board here, the old edition ones and they're not workbooks. *I was thinking we could start using it when we finished the kindergarten. *I thought we could use the kindergarten 1 a +b like everybody says, using number stickers or a rubber stamp. I looked at the hobby lobby and the Walmart *and couldn't find number stickers small enough or in large enough quantities. *We ended up using our Singapore kinder workbooks as handwriting practice for his numbers. *I'd often write the number on a scrap of paper for him to copy. *Later I'd tell him to flip through a few pages of the workbook to find the number he wanted to copy.

 

He learned multiplication using number lines on a whiteboard by Maria Millers method; small addition using his fingers and word problems; and at the same time he has almost finished the kindergarten 1 b. *[The YouTube "School house rock count by 5's" showed him how to multiply on his fingers instead of a number line. ]. *So many people here "compact the cirriculum" and test into the placement in their workbooks. *

 

Kindergarten 1b has a lot of chances to write your double digit numbers. *Strangely, adding double digit and multidigit numbers on the whiteboard is what made counting double digits sequentially finally click, { that & "the big numbers song" from YouTube.} *What kind of learner is that that has to work with something to get it? *

 

We've used the Singapore number bonds circles on the whiteboard to continue working on place value using dots, sticks, and squares for 1s, 10s, & 100s. *It's not the Montessori Golden Beads I would have preferred, but it's the same concept.

 

He watches Singapore math lectures on YouTube independently on my phone. *He pauses them and tells me he's learned something new. *He has taken notes on his whiteboard, pausing the video as needed, then explained his notes to me. *(wish I could have video'd that one, but he didn't want me to). *He also re-watches the lectures to understand them. * I saw my son learning things, working at learning things, and I thought it was great. * Now that he's watching and retelling the Singapore math YouTube videos I've signed him up for Khan Academy. *So far at the beginning it's a lot of the same brand Singapore video lectures. *

 

A lot of people on here say you need the supplementary Singapore math books, the word problems and such. *I have no idea what we're missing out on, but we're getting our word problems emailed from bedtime math . com. * We have a book called Apple Fractions. *Between that and the YouTube fraction lectures he asks stuff like, "if I break these three cookies into four pieces how many friends can I share it with? *What if a friend gives me half of one of their pieces? *

 

I wouldn't say he "knows" any of this stuff yet, except his <10 addition facts. * A lot of it's sinking in and starting to click. *I can tell because he's starting to discuss it. *

 

Looks like when he was 3 I wrote, "We really haven't used the Singapore math much yet because he can't write or draw well enough to do the lessons. *He's getting much closer recently. *We're on page 45 after one year.".*

 

He's almost 5 and he's finishing up 1b. *These first two math books were, for us, significantly about handwriting numbers, and drawing stuff like "draw 3 more sailboats". *

 

Blank circle stickers- now you tell me.!

 

So that's how my son uses his Singapore Math.

[mathnerd]

I would suggest that you start at 3. Mine went straight onto EarlyBird B at around 3.5 years old as he found Early Bird A too easy. We took several months to finish EB B, though.

Before starting SM EB, what I did was to use some Kumon counting and numbers workbooks and cuisenaire rods based activities for a while before moving onto Early Bird B (my son loved playing and building with cuisenaire rods, still does!). Then, we worked on the Miquon Math Orange book with Cuisenaire rods and Early Bird B at the same time, alternating between those depending on how we felt about each topic and the progress we made.

[PIE!]

Sounds like she's ready to start. Though I'm a huge fan of Singapore, I'd go with Miquon over EB. Just an idea.

[roanna]

Thanks for all the help. I'm just getting situated with our new curriculum with my son so I guess I got distracted from that in a good way. She's a wiggly one so I think waiting a bit is probably smart. I also thought maybe then she might like Get Ready for the Code. It seems pretty easy. She would have her own little school.

[boscopup]

I used EM with my middle son at age 4. He could have done the first book at 3, but the second book gets into missing addend and stuff like that.

 

My 3 year old can count well and is starting to add, but I'm waiting until 4 to do EM. We tried MEP Reception, but it wasn't fun for him. My plan is to go through R&S ABC workbooks this year. The C book teaches writing numbers, and it was fabulous for my middle son at age 3.5. Writing numbers in EM was never an issue because of that. He's still learning to write letters now in K, but numbers have been down pat for a long time.

 

I do some C-rod play with my 3 year old, using the education unboxed videos.