brownie Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 I am afraid I am ruining my kids' love of math. My oldest is frustrated with math, probably partly due to over-acceleration and he is now in public school so that becomes difficult to deal with. I am considering asking if he would like to take an AMC course this summer through AOPS, as well as having him repeat algebra next year to regain his confidence. So now ds10 is coming up. I wouldn't say he dislikes math yet, but I don't see the eagerness he had years ago. After completing Singapore 5, we are almost 1/4 way through Saxon 1/2 and taking it at half pace because there's no rush. But he has asked to take it slower because he doesn't like "the new topic every day". So I guess spiral doesn't appeal to him. I asked if he wants to go back to Singapore but he's not sure. He's more of a computational whiz rather than one who wants to solve contest problems so I thought he would find Saxon refreshing. DS7 still loves math :) He just finished Singapore 3. So - what do I need to do to re-kindle a love of math? I have plenty of resources...Life of Fred, HOE, Saxon, Singapore, AOPS, Math for Smarty Pants, Murderous Maths books, etc...so I guess the question is more how to approach it. I don't think just switching to LOF full time for example would do the trick. It's not about curriculum. Thanks! Brownie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 Don't know if this would help at all, but my son really gets a kick out of when I show him some of my books from undergrad math. At this stage, it's not about understanding, but just talking with him about Xeno's Paradox (calculus) he found really nifty. I let him look in the calculus text for area under a curve and volumes of solids. He found that cool. Also different geometry texts (non Euclidean geometry is a favorite). It seems to help him some to know where he's going and he's a bit better then with why he'd better be able to do arithmetic and understand basic word problems :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted February 22, 2013 Author Share Posted February 22, 2013 hmm...yes my oldest does think it's super cool that he understands what a proportional integral derivative line follower is for robotics. He thinks he knows calculus! From the perspective of "why am I doing this" maybe I should get out some of the connected math workbooks I bought. They can be fun and pose real problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 The best thing I have done to foster math love is frequent informal, real-life, supplemental, living math. DS10 lost his spark early on and it took me a long time to realize I needed to separate math from arithmetic. That one thought is paramount here! Some great old threads... http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/320275-designing-a-non-traditional-math-course-for-a-math-loving-structure-hating-child/page__hl__%2Bmath http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/423372-need-any-and-all-math-extra-ideas/page__hl__+cryptoclub#entry4292387 http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/437082-creativity-in-mathematics/page__hl__+cryptoclub#entry4450585 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 it took me a long time to realize I needed to separate math from arithmetic. That one thought is paramount here! Very well said, especially the bolded! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 I added the sort of challenging problem solving and puzzle problems that my son most enjoys into each math lesson rather than only doing it once a week. So a math lesson will start with something from Problemoids or Challenge Math and then we will work on BA or a problem set i have drawn from various sources and then a bit of drill from various sources. We might loop back to another Problemoids or random topic at the end. Also I signed him up for some weekend fun math classes at a center for young scholars. This got him around other kids also into math and the topics were meaty and interesting. One was on perfect squares and the other on Xeno's Paradox. We will do more of that sort of thing in the future. I totally agree with the sentiment that math is more than arithmetic. I nearly killed his love of math by trying to get him to work through a too easy for him level core before letting him tackle the topics he cares about. We also have opted not to accelerate him to the degree we could have. We decided to go deep and wide before starting pre-a (AOPS) rather than moving through as fast as we could have. There is a great article on the AOPS about the trap of accelerating gifted math students too far too soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Dana, I would so hire you as a math tutor if I could! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Dana, I would so hire you as a math tutor if I could! Thanks, but you'd also probably fire me pretty quickly! When things go well, it's great. Today (within the past hour in fact), poor boy made the mistake of misadding, which is fine, but then when i was showing him the problem (angles in triangles with exterior angles) he tells me, "No! you're wrong!" without following up with a "because...." Did NOT go well from there! Sigh. And I'm off to teach word problems at the cc tonight. Blech, blech, blech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momof2cm Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Ds went through the Singapore elementary books and always loved math. Then I made the mistake of starting him in Saxon, simply because I had the books from dd. After 4 months of screaming, crying, and arguing, he now works through Lial Algebra. He enjoys the real-life application problems. For him, this is what it it all about. It makes math meaningful. Sometimes, dh explains him what he uses a certain type of concept for at work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Thanks, but you'd also probably fire me pretty quickly! When things go well, it's great. Today (within the past hour in fact), poor boy made the mistake of misadding, which is fine, but then when i was showing him the problem (angles in triangles with exterior angles) he tells me, "No! you're wrong!" without following up with a "because...." Did NOT go well from there! Oh, yours does that too? :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 Yes I'm not sure about ds2. He's not all that fond of Math Olympiad, though getting better as we work through more of them. I think it invokes anxiety to tackle a problem he hasn't been taught. He's a perfectionist...one of the reasons I thought homeschooling would be good bc I can keep pushing the envelope so he learns he's not perfect. I thought he would like Saxon because of the focus on computation and that the spiraling would be good for cementing those key pre-algebra concepts. He says he's not sure he wants to go back to Singapore so I just can't figure what the problem is. I am going to pull our Zaccaro's Challenge Math on Wednesday and see how that goes. Then maybe some Connected Math but I'm not sure these won't lead to more stress?! Brownie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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