Singapore K Math Q's

[faiths13]

I was looking at Singapore math for K and I first saw the Essential Math. It looked great, but when I went onto their site I saw a bunch of other math books too for K. Which are best? Im just a bit overwhelmed. Thanks

[jennynd]

If u are looking for a relax k/preK the early bird is perfect. It is colorful and cute with cut and paste fun. My back then 3-4 yr old loved it. That was just fun. However, if you are looking for a Kinder, essential is align with a standard. It is more appropriated for a Kinder IMO

[faiths13]

Im looking for K, although the early bird sounds cute for my younger ds : )

[JenniferLynn]

My DD & DS 4's are moving quickly through Essentials. The concepts and format work well, but now we are getting stuck with pages requiring writing. They dictate to me. DD6 also did Essentials her pre-k year and it was a good foundation for SM Standards 1.

[boscopup]

I just used Essentials - books A and B. I used them at age 4.5, but they are very much K level. My child had already learned how to write numbers from R&S's Counting With Numbers (that also taught him counting to 10). I love the R&S number writing sayings. Anyway, book B of EM is very, very simple. It's a lot of same vs. different, that sort of thing. But make sure you heed the directions and talk about WHY the child chose whatever they chose. There are often multiple possible answers (something most young kid workbooks like this don't have). This encourages discussion. My son (DS2) got to one page and picked something off the wall in my mind, but then he explained it to me and it made sense. He was noticing things I had not. That gave me good insight into his brain, which is so hard to understand. :tongue_smilie: During Book A, I also used a 100 chart (just made a blank one in Excel, printed it in card stock, and laminated it), straws, and coins. We added one number each day, bundling tens of straws and converting coins as we had opportunity. I repeated and repeated and repeated the place value - "2 tens, 3 ones - 23". By time we were in the 30s, this kid had place value down pat. This is not part of the Singapore books. It's actually something that was recommended in MFW K that we were doing, plus I remembered my older son doing it in Saxon K at school (the morning meeting). I don't like Saxon overall, but I do like that place value work, as it gives rock solid knowledge of place value.

 

EM Book B ramps up the difficulty quite a bit. You NEED a manipulative for that book, and I highly recommend C-rods. It will get into adding, but also does missing addend. It's just a few problems here and there - not drill and kill by any means - but it's there. With C-rods, missing addend problems are easy because you can put the known addend next to the sum and just figure out which rod fills in the "hole" (missing addend). I let my son use the rods for ALL problems in book B. All that material will be gone over again in 1A.

 

Also, note that the book is not broken into lessons. You just do however many pages your kid feels like doing. My son did 30 pages the first week in book A, but by time we got to book B, we were doing 1, maybe 2 pages a day. So if your child is zooming through book A, that's ok! Book B will likely slow them down (and if it doesn't, they're probably ready for 1st grade math anyway).

 

Hope that helps!

[MeaganS]

I just used Essentials - books A and B. I used them at age 4.5, but they are very much K level. My child had already learned how to write numbers from R&S's Counting With Numbers (that also taught him counting to 10). I love the R&S number writing sayings. Anyway, book B of EM is very, very simple. It's a lot of same vs. different, that sort of thing. But make sure you heed the directions and talk about WHY the child chose whatever they chose. There are often multiple possible answers (something most young kid workbooks like this don't have). This encourages discussion. My son (DS2) got to one page and picked something off the wall in my mind, but then he explained it to me and it made sense. He was noticing things I had not. That gave me good insight into his brain, which is so hard to understand. :tongue_smilie: During Book A, I also used a 100 chart (just made a blank one in Excel, printed it in card stock, and laminated it), straws, and coins. We added one number each day, bundling tens of straws and converting coins as we had opportunity. I repeated and repeated and repeated the place value - "2 tens, 3 ones - 23". By time we were in the 30s, this kid had place value down pat. This is not part of the Singapore books. It's actually something that was recommended in MFW K that we were doing, plus I remembered my older son doing it in Saxon K at school (the morning meeting). I don't like Saxon overall, but I do like that place value work, as it gives rock solid knowledge of place value.

 

EM Book B ramps up the difficulty quite a bit. You NEED a manipulative for that book, and I highly recommend C-rods. It will get into adding, but also does missing addend. It's just a few problems here and there - not drill and kill by any means - but it's there. With C-rods, missing addend problems are easy because you can put the known addend next to the sum and just figure out which rod fills in the "hole" (missing addend). I let my son use the rods for ALL problems in book B. All that material will be gone over again in 1A.

 

Also, note that the book is not broken into lessons. You just do however many pages your kid feels like doing. My son did 30 pages the first week in book A, but by time we got to book B, we were doing 1, maybe 2 pages a day. So if your child is zooming through book A, that's ok! Book B will likely slow them down (and if it doesn't, they're probably ready for 1st grade math anyway).

 

Hope that helps!

 

:iagree:

We're doing it right now and this is very much my experience so far. She flew through book A, but B is much slower going and the perfect pace for her. Oh, and we're using an abacus for learning to count to 100.

[faiths13]

thanks!

[DandelionPrincess]

We are using both the Earlybird and essentials, i got both because my son (5 yo) LOVES workbooks and i thought he'd be able to do a lot of the essentials book as extra practice on his own when i can't sit down and "do school" with him when he wants to. I, however, did not anticipate how quickly he'd go through the A books, and now i am literally trying to stretch out the curriculum until we can afford to buy the B set (was definitely not anticipating this purchase this soon lol) WELL, the kid is loving it, (and so am I!) and he works on his own (with little instruction and side notes on fixing number reversals) with Essentials.

 

The books to require writing of numbers, but they also have several pages of teaching how to write the numbers.

 

Basically, look carefully at the scope and sequence on their site, I probably could have skipped the A books altogether, or JUST gotten the essentials book (its only about $10) to quickly review everything, and saved some money, starting with the B books. The only "new" material is the measuring of length, capacity, weight, etc, which i could have covered with a few hands-on examples on my own.

[TheReader]

So....what is the difference between the Essentials books and the Primary Math books (the "old" Singapore, US version)??