Math twice a day?

[lovinmyboys]

My DS is almost 8 and is working through BA 3B. I feel like he is making steady progress, but he only seems to be able to do math for about 15 minutes and then his brain is fried. I think he needs to be working for more than 15 minutes at this point. I'm thinking of doing math in the morning and the afternoon to bring the total time up to 30 minutes. He, however, wants to get all his work done in the morning so he can play in the afternoon. Thoughts? Is 15 minutes of math enough at this level? Should I try to stretch him a little more? Tell him to suck it up he is doing it twice a day?

[Myeightkiddies]

It doesn't have to be in the afternoon.  I would do 15 minutes first thing in the morning.  Stop.  Do other subjects.  During the last 15 minutes of his normal school day, do the remaining 15 minutes of math.   If you keep his schedule he won't feel that doing math is a punishment.  Also, it will encourage him not to drag it out as it will cut into his play time.

 

Example:  You start your day at 8:00am.  Do 15 minutes of math.  Let's say you end your day at 12:00pm.  At 11:45am, do the last 15 minutes of math.  He can choose whether to stay on task and finish at 12:00pm or drag his feet and finish at 12:30pm - reducing his free time.  I would not assign math at 2:00pm if you normally finish school at 12:00pm.

[Chrysalis Academy]

It doesn't have to be in the afternoon.  I would do 15 minutes first thing in the morning.  Stop.  Do other subjects.  During the last 15 minutes of his normal school day, do the remaining 15 minutes of math.   If you keep his schedule he won't feel that doing math is a punishment.  Also, it will encourage him not to drag it out as it will cut into his play time.

 

Example:  You start your day at 8:00am.  Do 15 minutes of math.  Let's say you end your day at 12:00pm.  At 11:45am, do the last 15 minutes of math.  He can choose whether to stay on task and finish at 12:00pm or drag his feet and finish at 12:30pm - reducing his free time.  I would not assign math at 2:00pm if you normally finish school at 12:00pm.

 

:iagree:  sounds like a smart plan to me.

[Cosmos]

We did two sessions of math for many years. The first session we worked together, and then later in the second session he did independent work. I didn't set it up that way for the same issue you are experiencing, but I bet it helped him concentrate better. Slowly the sessions stretched from 15 minutes each to 20 minutes each and so on. We were still able to finish before lunch at that age with no problem.

[My3girls]

I tried that at the beginning of the year, and it did not work for us. It took them several minutes to get their brain in math gear so they really didn't get anything done. Dd7&8 do 2 pages or 30 min whichever comes first, and dd12 does 2 pages or 60 min whichever comes first. Most of the time, they get the assigned work done before the time limit. Dd7&8 typically average about 20-25 min.

 

Everyone's different, though, so give it a try and see how it goes. If those 15 minutes are really productive, it may be enough, though.

[CrunchyGirl]

We generally are using three different programs each day. It generally looks something like this:

--LoF

--Read a chapter of our current literature selection

--LLTL (grammar, poetry, diagramming)

--Memory Work

--SM-CWP

--Latin

--BA

--Writing/Spelling (we only do our writing/spelling rotation last because it involves several dictation sentenceswhich tends to be where he dawdles so having it at the end keeps him motivated)

 

While it does vary, I'd say he generally only spends 15-20 minutes on each round of math.

[lovinmyboys]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try doing math first and last. I also have SM, so maybe I will try mixing up topics. I can understand that doing 15 minutes of straight multiplication could be tiring. Maybe just switching topics would be enough.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Switching topics is huge - when we switch topics, we literally do twice as much math.  It's like it's a whole new subject! Very different things pair especially well - multiplication with geometry, for example.

[SarahW]

Switching topics is huge - when we switch topics, we literally do twice as much math.  It's like it's a whole new subject! Very different things pair especially well - multiplication with geometry, for example.

 

 

True. CP does a page of MM and a few pages of BA everyday. I spread them out, usually MM is first, and then BA after lunch. He also can't do much math at a time, but is capable of doing more.

 

CP didn't realize at first that BA was a math book, so that helped. But eventually I did tell him that geometry was math, yes. 

[Kerileanne99]

At least twice:)

 

But I have a very 'mathy' kid who wants several different math strands going at the same time. Definitely switch the topic/focus/style.

For example, here was our today as far as math goes:

 

1) Very first thing she did about 20 minutes of math fact review on the computer, which she doesn't consider school at all but rather something to do whilst eating breakfast. She then begged to play 60 second sweep for mult/div fact practice.

2) During math time she did 3 pages in her Singapore book. We alternate BA depending on time/interest/need.

3) in between spelling and WWE we take a 'break' and do about 10-15 minutes of mental math alternating between Soroban style and Singapore style. Again, she doesn't consider that math for school:)

4) in be afternoon we choose 1 current 'strand' for play. Today was Hands on Equations, but yesterday was making animal pens in the shape of quadrilaterals/triangles/circles and finding the area, perimeter/circumference/volume.

5) during her afternoon reading time/quiet time we read Life of Fred together and she does the Your Turn to Play, before we do regular read alouds

6)bedtime reading ALWAYS includes at least 1 living math book: today was Rabbits Everywhere, a Fibbonaci story.

6) after teeth brushing Daddy does the daily Bedtime Math question we get via email as a special treat.

 

And apparently after dinner dd convinced daddy to 'play shop' with her. She has a cash register and a store in our walk-in closet with price tags, coupons for % off savings, etc. that she loves.

 

I guess we don't really so much 'do math' several times per day as we just try to incorporate our day into math, lol. But we do try to have a time for review, a different time for learning the core, and then time for a strand of current interest that I don't expect mastery as much as have fun exposing her to, if that makes sense, through games and activities.

 

Funnily enough, when she was about 2 and started developing her love of numbers it occurred to me that somehow we expect kids to become fluent in math just as much as with reading...but devote a wholly different proportion of time to it. How can our kids do this if we only devote say 30 minutes/day to math?

 

ETA: reading this back it sounds as though the kid spends the whole day working, but in all actuality it usually is only about 15-20 minutes at a time, except when she is eating breakfast! Little bites of time, but it really adds up (pun intended!).

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We have two sessions as well:

 

- the first is fact practice using XtraMath and TimezAttack.  This takes about 20 minutes and is independent.  He usually does this right after breakfast. 

 

- The second is our actual lesson from SM, which we do later in the morning or right after lunch, and it's usually between 20-30 minutes.  Like PP mentioned, we can do more if I do, say, one section of "hard" math, followed by one section from the clocks or graphs or capacity chapter. 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

1) Very first thing she did about 20 minutes of math fact review on the computer, which she doesn't consider school at all but rather something to do whilst eating breakfast. She then begged to play 60 second sweep for mult/div fact practice.

 

 

Thanks for mentioning this!  I was just looking for something to transition from mult facts to division facts, and this looks like just the thing!

[Soror]

Mine do 2 sessions as well, one for fact practice (games w/ me or each other, kindle or computer) and then another session to do our main program. I like the idea of perhaps splitting the lesson to get more work done. I have to wonder if perhaps it isn't too hard if he can only handle 15 minutes at a time. At that age I would say you need around 30 minutes a day for math, ymmv of course. 

[Dolphin]

We are still switching at 6th grade. He does 3/4, 20 minutes sessions of math through the day. 1-2 of them is his spine, but when the timer goes at 20 minutes he puts it away for awhile. The other 2 sessions are more of "fun" or different math. We rotate between, Khan Academy, LOF, Math Reflex, Penrose, etc...   But I find that even as an adult, my brain gets fried if I look at Math to long. :)