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How long are you spending on math?


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For your kids that enjoy math, how long are you spending per day? We have been back with Singapore for a year now and the kids are enjoying it. My dd was having a little trouble as we moved into subtraction, so I was looking around at different supplements and re-bought :o  Miquon. I am happy to say it is going much better for us than it did a couple years ago. (*My* math understanding has improved, lol.) We also are taking advantage of Rosie's videos over at Education Unboxed. So, daily, this week, we have been spending a good hour+ per kid on math. They are in two totally different places, so, even though my son likes to listen in or play during his sister's lessons/games, he still needs his own, a good hour+. Once you start adding the games and the discovery of Miquon, it really starts to add up....just wondering how long others are spending or if you reserve games for certain times/days, or how you get it all done. Math is now the favorite time of the day and they want to do it first. So, we've gotten to 11am and only done math... lol. Good problem?

 

Clarification in post #15: Hmm...I should probably clarify - they are NOT spending an hour on Singapore. They do that lesson in 10 minutes. (One in 1A, one in 3A) It's the games, activities, and Miquon tangents that add up.

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If they're enjoying it, a lot of that time is games, and you're able to get other things done that need to be done, no problem.

 

I don't spend that long on math myself. My first grader does about 20 minutes maybe? My 4th grader does about 45-60 minutes, with about half of that being on his own.

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My boys spend about an hour on assigned math work, as in the amount of work should take less than an hour to complete but they do dawdle.   Math enrichment is when they are done for the day or their other subjects will never get done.

 

Okay, we may have to look at it like this. I like the term math enrichment. :)

 

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* I should say our average is around an hour a day but it is not unusual for it to be more and much more rare for it to be less, this week our lessons were about 75 minutes every day. We generally do various things during that time though Ds likes math but he is not a math fanatic, when he was younger I thought he was but as time passes he is leaning more towards LA.

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I stupidly tortured my oldest by taking almost an hour a day just doing "textbook math" in first grade. Now, that did include games & manipulatives, but it was all so she could fill out the blanks in the workbook. 

 

Around time for child #3, I found that if you play games & work with manipulatives as your primary math time (say, for 15-30 minutes daily) for all of K & some of 1st, the actual 'textbook' time becomes less of a slog & doesn't take up nearly as much time when you finally get to it sometime in 1st grade. (This was very Miquon-inspired.)

 

I only have one who "loves math" (dd#3) so far, and she spends only 30-45 minutes per day on math. But she's the type who will pull her math book out on the weekend to work on it "for fun" or take it to bed with her.

 

DS#1 loves to play his math games. He hasn't figured out yet that they are MATH. They're still just GAMES. He'd play them several times a day for 10-15 minutes a pop if I had the time.

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My children are on the other end of the spectrum.  My 2nd grader spends about 10-15 minutes on Singapore 2B.  My 4th grader spends about 15-20 minutes on Singapore 4A.  They also both do math facts practice in the form of a worksheet of problems or an iPad game for about five minutes.  My 7th grader spends about 35-50 minutes on Saxon Algebra 1. 

 

They typically don't dawdle and are pretty bright in math.

 

A question out of curiosity, why do some of you use more than one math curriculum?  

 

We used only Singapore for my oldest until 6B and then switched to only Saxon and he aced the math portion of the CAT standardized test last year, so I feel like what they are doing is enough.  But at the same time, I am a homeschool mom, so I do second guess myself sometimes.   :001_smile:

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Dd11 spends an hour a day on math, and the youngers spend 30 min. We use IXL and Khan Academy as supplements when the assignment does not take the full time or for busy work if I have to spend a little extra time with someone. I, also, use it for extra practice if a concept is not clicking. I have tons of math games that they play in the car or if we are somewhere we have to wait like the orthodontist's office. Sometimes they pull them out on the weekends.

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My 8 year old does 2-3 exercises in SM 4 each day. With instruction and work time, we spend 20 minutes a day on math unless he is goofing off or the new concept is tricky. For harder concepts I still try to stay at 20 minutes a day, we just do a few practice problems a day until the concept is easy rather than drill for an extended period of time each day.

 

When we hit long division we had to slow way down. We did 4 problems a day. 2 on the board together, 1 with me talking him through the steps and him writing, and 1 alone that I checked. It took a month, but we had no tears and no fighting. Once mastered he started flying through again and he loves it. If I try for longer math lessons, he starts to hate math.

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My two do about 4-5 pages in Singapore a day.  The 6 yo is on 1A, and the 7 yo is on 1B.  That's pretty mandatory.  Then if they want they each can have some time on the ipad doing math games for fact practice.  We also play Sum Swamp, Monopoly Jr, and other random math games just for fun.  Those we don't schedule in or plan, they just happen every other day or so because we like them.

I've also started reading math books for fun to the kids.  We have been reading a fractions book each day for a week now, and the kids have been dabbling with fractions throughout the day since then (especially with their food!).  So that is math, but it's not scheduled in, and the kids don't consider it math.  :)

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Hmm...I should probably clarify - they are NOT spending an hour on Singapore. They do that lesson in 10 minutes. (One in 1A, one in 3A) It's the games, activities, and Miquon tangents that add up.

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We do 30-45 minutes of math at the table during school time. It could be shorter but ds always wants to do "one more page!" of Miquon. Later in the day ds does over an hour more of math practice just for fun. This includes ipad games (math evolve, math bingo) and family card/board games that are math-focused (Addition War, Place Value War, Tens, Kaboodle, Sequence Dice, Rat-A-Tat Cat). We also read living math books and Life of Fred outside of school time. Math is something ds really enjoys.

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We do about 20-30 minutes a day?  Depends on how much time she spends staring in the distance and doodling in the margins.  She does a Math Mammoth lesson on M-W (some of the lessons are quite long and then I'll break it up to two 2-3 page lessons), and then we do MEP on Thursday and Friday.  That one sometimes takes a bit longer, because there are games and activities with manipulatives and I let her play around with that as long as she wants to. 

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