serendipitous journey Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm working with A., who is nearly 8 yo. He is accelerated in maths, and was working in SM's DM Common Core for a bit but he seemed to be forgetting his basic arithmetic so I dropped him back into SM 6A standards. The text is just not teaching the problem solving explicitly enough for us. I can solve the problems, but am having the worst time teaching A. to solve them. Our percent challenge: problems that extrapolate back in time. ie, if I paid $180 for a couch and it was at a 10% discount, what was the original price without discount? He just perseverates in finding 10% of the 180. I realize that this is a conceptual issue and was treating it by doing 1 simple problem each day together (trying a couple of different approaches, none of which is magic), but progress is VERY SLOW. I'm tempted to drop it and pick it up in 6B or whenever the heck it is next in his curricula. The ratio challenge is to do with absolute changes to a given ratio that cause the ratio to alter. Such is, starting with two people who have money in a ratio of 5:6 and subtracting $28 from each persons account. Given a final ratio of 1:4, how much money did person A have at the start? How much did person B end up with? (this is from p. 111 -- I'm not concerned with the correctness of their answer for this problem -- I can't see how their answer is right -- but with teaching the method for solving the problem). He is having the worst time with the more challenging percent & ratio problems, and I'm wondering if anybody else has hit this? Shall I just skip the Scary Problems, or hit them maybe again at the very end of SM6? We plan to work through the Intensive Practice (but not CWP which has never ever worked well at our house) -- shall I count on that to reinforce the concepts? Purchase the Teacher Guide (SM6 has no Home Instructor Guide, just the Teacher's Edition which I do not own). Hop over to MUS Algebra (which we own) or Galore Park's Junior Maths (ditto) or back to SM's DM (ditto)??? any thoughts are much appreciated!!! also -- the "Key to" books, which I have on hand for percents, don't continue to this level of complexity as far as I can see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Yes, the ratio & percent problems in Singapore 6 are on the tricky side. My DD did Singapore DM 7 but I'm not convinced that she is totally rock solid on pre-algebra so I'm having her run through selected units in MEP years 7-9. MEP 8A unit 7 is on ratio & proportion, and 9A unit 4 is on fractions & percentages. I'd recommend looking through them to see if any of it would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Grab the iExcel books (process solving now I think). They have a bit more practice on setting up specific problem types and then practicing that type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted July 10, 2013 Author Share Posted July 10, 2013 oh, thank you both! I really want to finish out the SM6 sequence. more-or-less "properly" for reasons of Maternal Job Satisfaction. ;) CrimsonWife, I've liked a good deal of MEP and will get to those units after the littles go down. Dana, iExcel isn't on my radar at all: practice setting up problems is just what we need. I'll Google them later -- offhand, how $$$ are these and how difficult to place a child? thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Get them at Singaporemath.com under extra practice or supplemental books. Shipping will be your biggest expense. Books are relatively cheap. One book per level. Check table of contents. You may find starting in 5 is good. I really like how they walk through how to set up some of the problems I found tricky in CWP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Oldest ds and I limped through SM level 6 last year due to the reasons you mention. I've done SM levels K-6 now with multiple kids, and I love SM K-5. Level 6 made leaps that did not work for my ds or for me. I offered to ditch it mid level 6B, but ds wanted to finish. So we limped on, with me doing much of the work and him watching and learning that way. I had already decided that we would be repeating a pre-A type program so it all felt like "gravy" at that point. I do not plan on doing SM level 6 ever again. Sadly, I own two sets of each 6A and 6B, which I had purchased for the dc coming up behind, in addition to the text books. Oh well. They were not terribly expensive, and I can resell them. :) My plan is to do a combo of Dolciani pre-A and AoPS pre-A next year with both of my boys. My younger ds completed SM level 5 last year. We are working through booklets 1-3 of Keys to Algebra this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephanieZ Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Humm, I don't have direct experience with this problem, as we didn't have trouble with SM6, and I can't recall the issues you are having. . . . That said . . . Did your child already do SM1-5? Am I reading that right? If so, then I'd say maybe do 5 Intensive Practices and then return to 6. When my kids got to the end of a PM level, I'd add in an IP book before proceeding to the next level if I had any doubt they'd really nailed the current materials. Each child did this once or twice in their PM career, and I do think it helped. By a few months later (after completing IP), when we started the next level, they always thrived. So, if you can get your hands on 5 IP, then I'd look there for some help. I bet once you work through 5 IP, 6 won't seem hard. IIRC, I think I did 5 IP with most of my kids. I was always getting nervous by then that they'd be done with SM and on to Algebra sooner than I wished, so I threw in the IP to slow them down, lol. Maybe that was why I didn't run into trouble with 6! The Key To books are really very basic. I've used them for some basic stuff here or there, but I doubt you'll get much help from the Key To series on these trickier things. I've never used the HIGs, but maybe this would be a time to check out the HIG to see if there are approaches you could use to better communicate the concepts? Good luck!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 HiG wouldn't be any help IMO for this issue. I do like them overall but I doubt they'd be useful here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted July 10, 2013 Author Share Posted July 10, 2013 ... I've never used the HIGs, but maybe this would be a time to check out the HIG to see if there are approaches you could use to better communicate the concepts? Good luck!! HiG wouldn't be any help IMO for this issue. I do like them overall but I doubt they'd be useful here. FWIW, there are no HIG for SM6 (apparently -- I'd love to be wrong on this). There is a school-style teacher's guide, though. Dana, thanks for info RE purchasing those books. I need a new MathSprints anyhow, and usually ship that right from Singapore Math 'cause Rainbow doesn't carry it, so that'll at least bundle the shipping. Stephanie, thank you for the heads-up RE doing IP. We did not do the IP5 before beginning SM6, and it may be a good time to do it. texasmama, I'm so glad I'm not the only one hitting this problem!!! I don't think I'll use Singapore 6 with my younger child -- he'll probably do great with MEP and maybe Galore Park's stuff. Fortunately our Calculus Without Tears just arrived, so whatever I do RE pre-A level I may be able to rekindle fun with math via the calculus work ... hope never dies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 I've spoken with Jenny at Singaporemath in the past. There isn't a HiG for 6 standards and she has no plans to write one. She said 6 is basically a review students do to get ready for tests for later tracking. We chose to move from 5 to prealgebra. I will have my son do IP, CWP, and iExcel for 6 though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Just for kicks, I wanted to add that there is an HIG (put out by Sonlight) for level 6, US Editions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 We chose to move from 5 to prealgebra. I will have my son do IP, CWP, and iExcel for 6 though. I will be moving from SM5 to pre-A with my last two kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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