help me with math options please?

[mamabear2three]

Ok forgive me for posting another question so soon after the first one. I am feeling the learning curve as I realize my daughter's not just "average" and I'm not sure where to go from here. Hoping your experience will help me navigate the murky waters a little easier?

 

I had asked a question about my DD6's math on the K-8 board and was advised to stick with what we were working with, just doing multiple lessons per day since I like the teaching style and my daughter was enjoying it and learning. I think I might need to ask here too now that I'm starting to realize that maybe she's not just a garden variety average kid. While we do get new concepts, she doesn't need the repetition built into the program (we use McRuffy) and I felt like so much of it was wasting her time even thought it was "fun" because of all the manipulatives. 

 

So I had an epiphany today and pulled out the unit tests and the end of year test. She got excited to show me how much she knew and I only had her do one or two of each category if she knew it she did it and if she didn't I made a note of it. There were three skills she didn't know (quarters, pints/quarts, and beginning multiplication). She also didn't know how to do addition with regrouping but I showed her one example on the board, explaining as I went and she went on to do three on her own (excitedly). :huh:  This makes me think that multiplication will be pretty simple to teach her as well.

 

Her excitement at doing addition with regrouping when she balks and hates doing straight up addition was kind of eye opening to me. I had bought the 1st grade program in March because I thought, well, I'm not sure what I thought, but I felt bold ordering first grade before the end of K... Now it feels a little like a waste of money. :glare:

 

So we tried MEP and I hated the teaching style of level 1, it was so teacher intensive - I prefer to teach a skill and then give independent practice. 

We tried MM and DD hated it. (it was too busy, not colorful, and she really doesn't like doing addition without a number line - I have the singapore mental math book ordered because I think that will get her past this issue)

So now I have McRuffy 1 and we both liked it - colorful, lots of "toys" to play with, easy lessons for me to teach and assign practice - we were doing 2-3 lessons in about 15-20 minutes each day. I am a little afraid of ordering grade 2 and it being too easy as well, but am not sure what to do. Or do I switch to another program altogether?

 

I tested her math skills on MobyMax and she tested at grade 2.4 but she really didn't like the format so I don't know if it is very accurate.

 

Suggestions? (Tell me I am not going to go completely crazy as I figure this out?) :confused1:

[Crimson Wife]

Her excitement at doing addition with regrouping when she balks and hates doing straight up addition was kind of eye opening to me.

 

she really doesn't like doing addition without a number line

 

Sounds like she could use some facts practice. My DS really liked the Mindware Addition Adventures and Subtraction Secrets books for fact practice. The Right Start math card games set is also good, but it is more teacher intensive.

[mamabear2three]

Thanks, I'll look into those :) I've started randomly calling out an addition fact for her to answer during the day for her to get more practice.

 

I'm not against teacher intensive things, (especially games) but I just want a good mix for the actual curriculum.

[nature girl]

What about Miquon? It's very conceptual (similar to RS which we're also using.) But after kids "get it" they can just take off and learn on their own with the workbooks. My DD just loves it, to her it's all play, but I know it's teaching her to think mathematically in a creative way, which I think is amazing.

[eternalsummer]

Miquon

[mamabear2three]

with minquon, would I start with the first book?

[nature girl]

Hmmm...That's a tough one, because the Orange book does help them conceptualize the values associated with the rods, and the way to do various manipulations. Also one can really build on the worksheets to make them reasonably advanced. But I think if I were starting with a 6yo gifted student I'd probably start with the (excellent) Education Unboxed videos, because they'll give a similar foundation, and once I'd gone through some of their games I'd start with a later book. (I haven't looked at anything past Orange, though, so I'm hoping someone with more experience can comment.)

[AimeeM]

As someone who is working with Miquon now - yes, start with Orange. Yes, it starts out easy, but the method is different, so there's that learning curve... and then those blasted c-rods, lol.

[Julie of KY]

Another vote for Miquon! Start with Orange.

 

I have used a combination of Miquon and Singapore with four kids now.

 

I would also recommend looking at Beast Academy when she gets to third grade.

[mamabear2three]

Would doing Miquon be better than independent work on basic facts/higher level place value etc based on the preassessment for Beast Academy 3A and starting on BA 3A whenever she is ready based on their placement test? I have a word problems book and mental math book from singapore ordered and on the way, and can get the next level up in both of those. I feel confident in teaching place value and multi-digit addition/subtraction and even multiplication/division. 

 

ETA: I've been thinking about it all day and I think I am going to do Miquon - there's no good reason to have her 2 years ahead, and she could benefit from the problem solving skills that Miquon would provide. 

[basketcase]

Personally, I'd go ahead and buy several of the levels. Start with Orange, but with her background, she may prefer to skip around a lot, following a particular skill through the different books. Good luck!

[mamabear2three]

Personally, I'd go ahead and buy several of the levels. Start with Orange, but with her background, she may prefer to skip around a lot, following a particular skill through the different books. Good luck!

 

so I got this out today (I ordered the PDF from currclick so I could print out pages for my other kids down the road as well)... she did one activity in the orange book where she identified which numbers stood for which rods and then made addition problems for each rod... after about 10 minutes she was done - had memorized the numbers and rods and was bored. :huh:

 

The only thing in the orange book that she doesn't know is the multiplication.

 

So after some outside play time we spent the rest of math time (I try to do 20 minutes a day) with coins, playing store. Working with quarters (which I had not introduced before) and dimes, nickels and pennies finally challenged her and I was able to see some actual learning take place. 

 

After dinner she brought the coins back out and asked to play again.

 

While the books are pretty cheap, I don't have a lot of money (and I seem to be wasting a lot of it on math that is too easy... :glare: ) and I am hesitant to buy the rest of the books if I won't be able to use more than half of what's in each one...grumble grumble... I even looked at singapore but other than the mental math and word problems, there's not much new there. I just want to be able to buy a curriculum that is appropriately challenging but she's missing a couple pieces so I'm back to thinking that I fill in those few skill gaps, work with her over the summer on word problems and mental math and start her on a third grade curriculum in the fall.

[basketcase]

Oh no! But at least you can use it with other kids. 

 

The thing about Miquon is that it will also teach some things you may not feel like she has a need to know right now - I've got the Green book here, and it has sections on perfect squares, factors, division, fractions, measurement (pints, quarts, gallons). Quite a range of things, but perhaps none of it what you want if you're just trying to fill in a few gaps. It really is a lovely, discovery-driven curriculum, but definitely on its own path in terms of scope and sequence. Good luck!

[mamabear2three]

I might consider it still, I have to see how my curriculum money shakes out over the summer as I get fall stuff set up. I think I am going to at the very least, not worry about concepts and just try to go deeper into what we have - and right now my focus is going to be on mental math and word problems. I'll just teach her concepts as she needs them. I might see if I can build a whole year off of that, and then she won't be starting BA so early, and she'll have a really strong solid base of problem solving to build on.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Fair warning, if she is gifted then you are going to probably go through major amounts of curriculum very, very quickly till you find her level.  It isn't the nicest thing in the world for your wallet, but it is the only way you are going to find her level.  Many people use Math Mammoth for this reason.  It is not terrible, and it is cheap.

 

Right now it might just be math, but soon it might be all the other subjects as well.

[mamabear2three]

Fair warning, if she is gifted then you are going to probably go through major amounts of curriculum very, very quickly till you find her level.  It isn't the nicest thing in the world for your wallet, but it is the only way you are going to find her level.  Many people use Math Mammoth for this reason.  It is not terrible, and it is cheap.

 

Right now it might just be math, but soon it might be all the other subjects as well.

 

:lol:  I love your screen name - it's the description of my life right now.

 

So yes, in math I'm struggling to find her level...I might have to pull MM out again and see if skipping a bunch of the problems will help her like it better. It just seems that so much of Early math curriculum is all about repetition of the same basic concepts. I'm just now realizing that her balking at doing the same thing for the 500th time might be because she only needed to do it 5 times... 

 

As for the other subjects - 

 

In reading - she's gone from beginning reading to at least 5th grade level this year (I haven't tested her reading level in the past 2 months but she is reading fluently from a young adult bible...).

 

Science I do not use a curriculum - when I looked at grade level stuff I knew it wouldn't work for us and as much as I'm tempted to get a curriculum, doing our own thing on our own time table is really working well for us.

 

History - we started with SOTW1 and she absolutely loved it, next year I am putting together my own American History studies. She begs to do history every day.

 

The only thing I haven't really given much instruction in is writing, except that we did learn cursive this year and her handwriting is pretty good from all the copywork. I have Brave Writer Jot it Down for next year. 

 

I had to do health for state requirements - we dabbled in a first grade health book... it was such a joke. :lol:

 

If I have the money I would love to add song school latin next year but figuring out math is a priority over that.

 

So yeah... I told my husband that I went from "oh homeschooling! That'll be fun! I can be her teacher!" to desperately trying to hang on for the ride as I try to keep up with her. 

[EndOfOrdinary]

You might want to check your library.  Ours carries Song School Latin as well as Getting Started with Latin and a few others.  They have quite a bit of what is considered homeschool curriculum.

[mamabear2three]

ooh! what a great idea! thanks!

[kiana]

Ok, this isn't what I'd normally like to do, but it's pretty obvious to me that she's underplaced for her ability level although she still has gaps. This means that you ideally would like something easy to compact and cheap, until you reach a level where it's a little more difficult for her.

 

With that in mind, you might look at either getting dollar store workbooks or something similar, OR choosing something old and open-source like Ray's primary arithmetic, (or if you bought all of MM, using that) and skipping through looking for holes. Then when she's ready, I'd go for Beast Academy as others suggested.

 

I definitely agree with your intuition about not doing all the pages of problems. I was this type of kid, and what my mother eventually did was just put me into a college developmental arithmetic text at 7. (not that this is recommended, but there was no internet then to find all these great resources). With far fewer problems and the ability to skip an entire chapter if I aced the chapter test, I was far more motivated and tried harder.

[mamabear2three]

or if you bought all of MM, using that) and skipping through looking for holes. Then when she's ready, I'd go for Beast Academy as others suggested.

I actually bought all of MM a year ago on a really good sale... the last time I tried it in March (when DD hated it) I started with level 1A and I didn't realize how advanced she was and interpreted her balking at doing the work as it being too "hard" so I assigned more practice... oops.  :leaving:

 

I started with 1B and am skipping through it, and doing it orally or on the white board instead of printing it out. I think a big thing for me has been letting go of expectations on where she should be or what she should know and just assume that if she can answer the first question correctly without a problem, to skip that entire concept and move on... I think MM will work really well for us now that I am using it differently. It's been quite a learning curve for me. 

 

Do I just need to work through level 2A and B before moving to BA? (I am still planning on doing mental math and word problems to slow her down some and beef up her problem solving skills)

 

on a side note, she beat me in checkers yesterday - her third game ever and I was legitimately beat... :glare:  do you know how weird that is for me to have my 6 year old daughter slaughter me in checkers on her third game ever?  :lol:

[DeniseF]

In terms of finding the gaps...I'd go to the Singapore Math website and look at their Scope and Sequence to identify gaps or take their online Assessment.  When you mentioned that your daughter was just introduced to regrouping in addition it occurred to me that there really are a lot of skills between that and the beginning of 3rd grade math.  My 6 year old DD went through Singapore Math on her own and is now beginning 3A so she is very mathy but she did spend about 5 months going through 2A and 2B.

[kiana]

 

I started with 1B and am skipping through it, and doing it orally or on the white board instead of printing it out. I think a big thing for me has been letting go of expectations on where she should be or what she should know and just assume that if she can answer the first question correctly without a problem, to skip that entire concept and move on... I think MM will work really well for us now that I am using it differently. It's been quite a learning curve for me. 

 

Do I just need to work through level 2A and B before moving to BA? (I am still planning on doing mental math and word problems to slow her down some and beef up her problem solving skills

 

 

I'd also make sure she can do the LAST problem. First and last sounds like a good idea.

 

 Check out the pre-assessment for BA.

 

[sunnyday]

In terms of finding the gaps...I'd go to the Singapore Math website and look at their Scope and Sequence to identify gaps or take their online Assessment.  When you mentioned that your daughter was just introduced to regrouping in addition it occurred to me that there really are a lot of skills between that and the beginning of 3rd grade math.  My 6 year old DD went through Singapore Math on her own and is now beginning 3A so she is very mathy but she did spend about 5 months going through 2A and 2B.

 

I'd recommend the assessments over just looking at the S&S. I was pretty sure my DS could jump straight into 3A, but looking through the assessment with him, there were some oddly-worded word problems (best solved with bar diagrams) and some division with remainders that he didn't have experience with. So we'll cover those before proceeding. (He's solidly engaged with BA 3A & B, no problems thus far despite not having the Singapore -- and I presume MM -- 2B material down completely.)

[MotherOfBoys]

At the beginning of the year my son was in the same boat. We use MM, as recommended by the hive, and I cross out the scaffolding sections. I make him do all the word problems and sometimes a few of the arithmetic problems. I demonstrate the sections for the day on the white board quickly. Then he gets to work. We finished MM1 and 2 in one year with Verbal Math 1 and 2. We did fact practice with a tablet game. I think Miquon would have worked well with this child but we started in Saxon so it was easier to switch to MM for me. I did have a teaching curve with MM. I was a "Do all the problems" person and with a child like this you can't be that person.

 

We will start Beast 3 in the fall. I know he could start Beast now but I have worked through the Beast book and it's a different set up that could frustrate a child that is used to easy. Beast is problem solving and thinking. MM is more regurgitating the method. I'm giving him the summer to mature and do MM3A chapters 1 and 6. I wish MM didn't spread out place value so much. My son could handle it all at once. It's an easy fix though, because of the setup of MM. One Beast requirement on the placement test is high place value. Also, Beast doesn't cover money and time so we will be taking a break from BA to fill that in by MM. I, again, wish MM did bigger chunks of money and time. I like having MM to supplement BA just in case we get to a section where he finally does need more practice or the concept presented in a different way.

 

I have the BA books already. My son has already read the guides but I haven't let him do the practice. He can still get stuff from MM so I'm getting my moneys worth. After reading the BA guides, I told him he couldn't start till he finished MM2 and it gave him a goal.

 

Hope this helps

[NittanyJen]

Before spending money on BA, download a sample and make sure the comic book format works for her. It would have been fine for one of mine, but the kiddo I had who was young enough to use it took one look, his eyes crossed, and he cried. He hates the format of comic books! We stuck with Singapore and Fred.

[wapiti]

To add to Jen's comment above, I don't like the comic book format myself.

 

FWIW, my ds was interested in BA when he was 6, but it was just too much for him (that first geometry chapter).  We set it aside and came back to it recently (he just turned 8), and lo and behold he really liked it ("this is fun!!").  I don't know how he feels about the guide and as someone mentioned someplace, we might try to do some of the workbook without the guide - we'll see - I'm not sure whether that would work.  My summer plan has us skipping stuff he can already do well (most of the standard topics for this level) and concentrating on the more unusual topics contained in BA.

[kiwik]

Sorry I forgot I was reading an old thread.