2Peanuts Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Hi all, I'm a newbie to these forums, so ummm... Hi! My DD9 is a 4th grader-ish this year but she does 5th grade math using Math Mammoth (MM). Although she is very good with math, she gets frustrated with it and does not enjoy the constant repetition of skills that comes with MM. I'm currently planning out next year for her, so that means I'm looking at 6th grade-ish math, which I understand means pre-algebra. A friend recommended Jousting Armadillos (JA) as the next step in her math journey and I was wondering --- how painful is it to transition from the more traditional format of MM to the "discovery method" of JA? My kiddo thrives on checking off boxes & knowing if she got an answer right or wrong, so I am worried that she will hate the open-ended nature of JA. Then again, she intuits math really easily. For example, she does subtraction almost like an algebra problem. Instead of subtracting for 17-9, she thinks "what plus 9 will equal 17?" As I plan next year's lessons, I'm very tempted to dive in with JA because I desperately want her to enjoy math again. Plus getting through just 3 pages of MM drains her of energy and kills our homeschooling day (and that's with skipping problems). So...can those of you who have used it advise me on what it's like to transition to discovery-method math? Many thanks! Carol P.S. I know I'm kinda dorky using the full names of the curricula and then giving abbreviations, but as a newbie to the boards, I spend half my time trying to figure out what all the acronyms mean! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 We went from MM to Jousting Armadillos and dd11 is happy with the new program A big difference for us is that DD was working mostly independently in MM but needs me to sit with her for JA lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 One of my twins used MM most of the way through. His brother is about to start JA but did different programs. Just from looking at it, I know JA wouldn't work for ds who did MM and it's because of that discovery approach. He doesn't enjoy math that is discovery based while his brother does. However, I think that's something innate to them to some extent. Ds needed a program that wasn't discovery based. That was MM. For pre-algebra, it may be Dolciani or Lial's or something else. But another student might be different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forgiven Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 My DD12 transitioned from MM5B (old version) to JA. She did do the first chapter of MM6A, but decided that she liked JA better. She's about to start the book after JA, Crocodiles and Coconuts. She has done well with JA. She's mostly independent. I only get involved when she doesn't get problems correct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Hi, and welcome! :seeya: My dd did MM 4 and 5, then in 6th grade we did just a quick run through MM6 - I would give her the chapter review first, and then we only did the lessons she needed to. That took maybe 3 months? But it was helpful. Then we did JA. It was hands-down, her favorite math *ever*. She loved it. It wasn't a difficult transition, the discovery method is extremely gentle and pretty incremental, and it doesn't require the leaps of logic/insight that a more hard-core discovery type program does (AoPS PreA, I'm looking at you). And it really was a thrill for her to figure out for herself why you get a negative when you multiply a positive and a negative, for example. There are definitely right answers to the questions, it's not all loosy goosy, it's just that there are some interesting puzzle-type questions in addition to more regular calculation-type questions. And there will be a few questions, then an inserted explanation/discussion, then a few more questions, so you are really building up an understanding of the idea behind the lesson as you go. The first chapter, on inductive and deductive thinking, felt really different from other math programs. We did that one out loud together. But the rest of it was relatively straightforward and mostly independent, although if she got stuck on a problem-solving problem we'd work through it together. Chapter 6 was much more challenging and took longer than the others. I wouldn't worry about transitioning from MM to JA, it isn't too much of a leap, and it sounds like she's not loving MM style anyway. I say go for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Peanuts Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Thanks, everyone, for your feedback! I guess I was a little nervous about trying out JA because the first few lessons on inductive/deductive reasoning are so different from everything else I've done. Plus (ahem), I wasn't even sure I could figure out how to answer the questions so I was worried I wouldn't be able to lead DD thru the thought process. (I cheated & read the solutions.) I was worried that the challenge of those lessons would turn her off to the rest of the curriculum, but it sounds like the rest of the chapters are closer to what I know of pre-algebra (which happened so long ago for me, it's rather fuzzy). Thanks for the advice! Carol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Oh, no shame in reading the solutions manual! That's what it's there for. I had it open in front of me during many a discussion, too! ;) Do be aware there are errors in the solution manual. If you have a recently purchased second printing, they might have been mostly corrected, but we found a bunch of errors in ours. It kind of tickled dd when she got it right and the answer book had it wrong! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shburks Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Oh, no shame in reading the solutions manual! That's what it's there for. I had it open in front of me during many a discussion, too! ;) Do be aware there are errors in the solution manual. If you have a recently purchased second printing, they might have been mostly corrected, but we found a bunch of errors in ours. It kind of tickled dd when she got it right and the answer book had it wrong! Us, too. I just sold my copy and have quite a few corrections marked in the teacher's edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shburks Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Thanks, everyone, for your feedback! I guess I was a little nervous about trying out JA because the first few lessons on inductive/deductive reasoning are so different from everything else I've done. Plus (ahem), I wasn't even sure I could figure out how to answer the questions so I was worried I wouldn't be able to lead DD thru the thought process. (I cheated & read the solutions.) I was worried that the challenge of those lessons would turn her off to the rest of the curriculum, but it sounds like the rest of the chapters are closer to what I know of pre-algebra (which happened so long ago for me, it's rather fuzzy). Thanks for the advice! Carol We really struggled with the first few lessons because it didn't seem like math. And there were a few problems that he and I just couldn't wrap our brains around. Chapters 2-5 were mostly what I remember from pre-A. We finished the book but I learned that this type of book wasn't a good fit for my ds! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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