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How Long Do You Spend On Math?


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And how old/what grade is your child? :bigear:

 

 

I am spending about 1.5 hours on my oldest boys with them alternating Teaching Textbooks and extra math activities (Life Of Fred, Flashcards, reinforcing ideas from the lessons etc.)

 

They are 8 and 10 years old. ETA: They are doing 3rd and 5th grade Math.

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And how old/what grade is your child? :bigear:

 

 

I am spending about 1.5 hours on my oldest boys with them alternating Teaching Textbooks and extra math activities (Life Of Fred, Flashcards, reinforcing ideas from the lessons etc.)

 

They are 8 and 10 years old. ETA: They are doing 3rd and 5th grade Math.

 

My 12 year old spends about that long working on AoPS pre-algebra. I set the timer for 45 minutes for my 10 year old. He's doing Singapore and sometimes will get through a number of exercises in that time, but other times he'll only complete a few problems. My littlest guy spends about 20 minutes on math.

 

My eldest, who completed Singapore 6B when she was 9, never spent more than an hour a day on math (and often much less).

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And how old/what grade is your child? :bigear:

 

 

I am spending about 1.5 hours on my oldest boys with them alternating Teaching Textbooks and extra math activities (Life Of Fred, Flashcards, reinforcing ideas from the lessons etc.)

 

They are 8 and 10 years old. ETA: They are doing 3rd and 5th grade Math.

 

These are our math minutes/day.

 

My 4 yo spends about 20.

My 7 yo about 45.

The 5th grader about an hour.

The 7th grader has spent at most 2 hours in one day (on a Challenge section in the second half of Art of Problem Solving Algebra book.)

 

Some children are able to handle more math time than others. But, if you think the amount of time is too much, you could break up the math into a morning and afternoon session, or even a weekend session.

 

Some of mine also do a 15 minute 'afternoon math' which is basically the time we use to fix any mistakes from the morning math. I don't like to start the next day spending lots of time fixing mistakes from the previous day.

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Some children are able to handle more math time than others. But, if you think the amount of time is too much, you could break up the math into a morning and afternoon session, or even a weekend session.

 

:iagree: We do this for DD with Algebra. She does better with working on some in the morning and going back to complete the lesson in the afternoon.

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When I allotted 30-45 minutes per school day for math for my 2nd grader, I was always rushing her. :glare: It felt like pushing frozen molasses up a hill on a February morning.

 

One day I set the timer for 60 minutes. It was so relaxing. We suddenly had time for math. :001_huh:

 

We do about 30 minutes of something "hands-on" and exploratory/conceptual -- Education Unboxed/C-rods/Miquon, Hands-On Standards, Singapore-type problems, other explorations with math manipulatives, etc.

 

Then she spends about 20 minutes doing either a Horizons lesson (basically just practice) or some Math Mammoth (really mostly practice at this point). I do a bit of teaching with these, but they're straightforward.

 

Then she spends about 10 minutes on some form of fact drill (computer drill, Kumon workbook, fact cards, fact songs, a game with me). She loves this approach to math, and has become much more enthusiastic about math. Who knew that giving it more time would be better (for us) than giving it less?

 

The amount of book work she covers has not really changed much, but giving time for the hands-on conceptual development was crucial here.

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The 1.5 hours is the time I give for me to do Math with both kids, so it works out a bit more like this.

 

8am - 8:45 Math time! 10yo gets started on TT lesson

8yo works on multiplication concepts - this is taking a long time because it hasn't quite "clicked". We use skip counting, Math U See blocks, flashcards, etc. LOTS of practice because it's still not cemented in yet.

 

10yo will finish his Math in that time frame and I will hand him my phone with a math drill app

 

5yo will distract a lot and take up 5-10 minutes of time.

 

Then 8yo will take a break for 15 minutes and it will be 9am

 

8yo takes 30-45 minutes on TT, but he always gets 100%. He just has to check and be sure of himself.

 

I will read Life of Fred with 10yo and go over concepts he missed on his Math Lesson from earlier in that 30 minutes.

 

More interruptions from 5yo happen.

 

So it probably averages out to 1 hour each, but with me spending 1.5 hours to get it all in.

Then it's 9:30 and I am DONE with Math with the olders. :tongue_smilie:

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We are probably spending about that long, but IMO we are not getting nearly enough done. I am frustrated right now with ds8 about how slow he is doing his work. In 30 minutes this morning, he only did 4 problems (Singapore CWP), and I helped walk him through 3 of them. I am having to have him come back to math later so I can sit with him and make him focus on it.

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And how old/what grade is your child? :bigear:

 

 

I am spending about 1.5 hours on my oldest boys with them alternating Teaching Textbooks and extra math activities (Life Of Fred, Flashcards, reinforcing ideas from the lessons etc.)

 

They are 8 and 10 years old. ETA: They are doing 3rd and 5th grade Math.

 

8.5 year old (3rd grade): I set the timer for 40 minutes. He's doing Singapore, almost finished 2A, about to move to 2B (probably Monday).

6.5 year old (1st grade): Usually around 20-30 minutes maybe? Not sure exactly... He's doing MUS Alpha.

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30-60 mins most days. DS1 is 8.5, and working through Singapore 5A. DS2 and DD sometimes distract him, and sometimes he distracts himself.

 

IME, he has an easy time with most math concepts, but I think the fact he's "young" for the type of work he does means he sometimes goes a little more slowly or sometimes makes silly mistakes. He's only recently starting to be more reliable with self-checking to actually find his errors.

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Well...

 

RS C (which he 'll finish by Thanksgiving) takes 20 - 45 minutes

Menu Math or Algebra Readiness takes 5 - 10 minutes

Review and extra practice takes 5 - 10 minutes

Dreambox takes 30 minutes (more if he chooses)

 

So, anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, on average. Some rare days it's more, but often I'll cap it at 1 hour on a really bad day.

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My son takes about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how much he's goofing off or being uncooperative.

 

He does two pages from MM (2B, 3A or 3B), an Algebra Readiness puzzle, and some Beast Academy. I recently cut down on how many pages he was doing because even though it came easy to him, he was constantly complaining about math. I hope to gradually increase it again.

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currently-

ds-8yo- 2nd grader- RSD/BA- 1hr daily- we're alternating right now on days, usually 2 lessons of RS at a time for a couple of days and then a few days with how many ever pages of BA we can get done.

 

dd5yo-k- RSA- 1 lesson a day about 3 days a week- maybe 15 min

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8 yr old, halfway through 4th grade math, about 10 mins a day. In that time he does 4 worksheets and usually gets 100%. He's a mathy kid obviously. If I had him doing 30-45 mins a day he'd be moving way too quickly. I'm trying to slow him down so we're not starting algebra super early. Last year I slowed him way down and he only did like 5 mins a day.

 

5 yr old, doing kindy stuff, 5-15 mins if I can get her to focus. Sometimes I just give up and we play number zingo instead.

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Wow! At those ages we most often spent 30-45 minutes. Never more than an hour. I've always liked the idea of using additional resources for math, but my kids' interest level and attention span just wasn't there, plus more than an hour of math, and they wouldn't have retained anything anyway. Are you looking to cut back some, or are your kids enjoying spending lots of time on math concepts?

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7 year old: 20 minutes of Miquon in morning, 15 minutes of drill via some math app in afternoon, 20-30 minutes of LOF as part of bedtime reading

 

6 year old: 20 minutes of Singapore Math with Miquonesque activities in morning, just starting LOF in evening

 

We can't do more than 20 minutes of focused work on new material at a time without frustration or eyes glazing over.

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