Right Start Math

[MistyMountain]

I am considering getting Right Start A and B for my kids. I have 3 kids. Right now I am only after schooling my 7 year old who is in 1st grade in a charter school. I do 2 plus 2 does not equal 5 with her but I wanted to add something fun where I can expand beyond addition and subtraction to 20. I just want something that won't take much time but is fun. She is doing good in math at her school at the moment but it isn't her strong point.

 

I also have a 5 year old son. He misses the cut off for kindergarten this year. I plan on sending him to kindergarten at the charter my oldest goes to but I am not sure this school will work beyond kindergarten and so I will evaluate at the end of the year what to do with him and home schooling is a possibility. The charter has traditional methods to teaching and has really high standards for handwriting and behavior I am not sure he can meet. Kindergarten is only 2.5 hours really early in the morning with a really great teacher so I have the rest of this school year the summer and next I will have time to work with him. He just finished Singapore Essential Kindergarten but I am not sure I want to continue with it. He did decent with it and his skills are pretty average but I think he needs more addition and subtraction practice then it offers. Right now he can count to 100, skip count by 5 and 10s. He gets the concept of addition but still needs rods or manipulatives. He sort of gets counting on but needs a little more work with that. He gets place value, fractions and ordinal numbers. He cannot write numbers but he recognizes them. I was thinking of getting level B for both my 5 and 7 year old.

 

Once my 3 year old recognizes her numbers I like something manipulative heavy that I can use with her gently. I was thinking of getting A for her but going slow.

 

I prefer things that lay out exactly what I need to do because I am very bad at organizing things myself. If I decide to get right start should I get A and the A to B set or set B for the older kids and get the manuals for A once the 3 year old seems ready. I can hold off on A but I wanted to start with my older two.

 

Do you think right start is a good fit for what I described? It is a lot more money then I prefer to spend but I am looking for something that is well organized and open and go and has a lot of games and practice and manipulatives. I have a base ten set, place value cards and cusinaire rods I use but I am not good at making a long term plan with them. We play with them at times but it feels so disorganized.

[longnightmoon]

Rs could fit what you describe. There are aspects that are really brilliant. But you do need to plan your lessons ahead of time and have all the materials copied and cut out. I often got frustrated because I felt like I was missing something when trying to implement the lessons. One lesson might need cards cut out on card stock and another manipulative,etc. so you need some prep time to get stuff ready beforehand if you want an open and go feel. Not sure if that makes sense.

 

I liked aspects of RS but left it for Miquon which was way easier to implement for me. I needed something less teacher intemsive. That said, I can see why people love RS and stick with it.

 

HTH.

[thegeyser]

There is a packet for $10 or so you can buy that has everything you'll need pre-printed for you. It saved me tons of time!

 

[bluedarling]

I love RS for the early years, but it is teacher intensive.  Having multiple kids running through multiple math programs each day got old very quickly.  I would not start out using 2 different levels.  I would definitely not worry about the 3yo yet...let her be little as long as you can!!  Just get B for the older 2.  They are still young, too....so try to have fun with it and not let getting through complete lessons be the goal...the goal is to explore and have fun with math at that age!  I'm using level C for my gifted 8yo (granted, as a supplement)....so I wouldn't be in a hurry to get through B. Actually, if your 6yo isn't strong in math, I'd probably recommend using A for both kids!  It would just be more fun, which is what you want math to be.  If you don't think you could draw B out and go extra slowly, repeating the games and activities, it would be better to use A which covers a lot of the same material at a slower pace.