blondeviolin Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I'm at this point with my first grader. BA is appropriate math-wise and he really does love the puzzle-y approach to math. However, he is struggling with being wrong or not seeing the answer right away on the starred problems. I was hoping he could eventually learn to work through it, but it's becoming obvious that he's not developing that anytime soon. In the meantime he's annoyed with how "easy" SM 3 is. I am debating accelerating him through MM 3 by having him take the chapter tests. However, I'm concerned that he will miss some practice or concepts because he easily puzzles through some problems. (Last night it was 34x5 fairly easily.) He is working hard on his phonics stuff so I want math to be a little bit easy, but apparently too easy is not worth it to him. Suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My kid like this had a lot of success with Zacarro books. :) Also Math Circles with a live teacher, but I'm not sure if a tutor or something similar to that is an option for you. Whenever a tutor is involved he is somehow better able to manage the intensity and frustration levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 At a recent FOL sale I picked up vol. 2 of Figure it Out by Sandra Cohen. I'm not sure exactly where this series came from or why. it's largely guided discovery exercises with some manipulatives (household objects). Like BA it has some "odd" things, I saw some probability and fractions in vol. 2. I haven't had a chance to look at it closely yet. And I don't know if there's samples anywhere in the internet. So this may be entirely unhelpful, but it may be a good fit for a younger "mathy" kid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My kid like this had a lot of success with Zacarro books. :) Also Math Circles with a live teacher, but I'm not sure if a tutor or something similar to that is an option for you. Whenever a tutor is involved he is somehow better able to manage the intensity and frustration levels. Zacarro books, Singapore CWP, contest math are good choices for this stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotherOfBoys Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My first grader is too immature at times to handle BA, too. We took a break this week and did Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge Math. He does one chapter a day and only levels 1-3. This is 15 problems total. We are working on showing his work. I borrowed this from interlibrary loan to see how it goes. We will continue with it as long as I can renew it. The concepts are different each day which is good for my hyper/unfocused child. I made a list of topics I want to cover/try with him at the beginning of the year instead of the typical goal of "finish this curriculum." It included things like learn to multiply (everything), learn to divide, work on problem solving, learn more geometry, try deeper fractions, keep reviewing money and time, etc. Then I come up with computer games or workbooks on that topic. This is what I resort to when we need a break. Khan Academy online has been great also. BA went really well though. We haven't needed much else till coming back from Disney. We just can't get it together now. We only have 3D left. My box checking anxiety is bubbling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Keeper Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Singapore's Challenging Word Problems books and the Intensive Practice books were good for one of mine who needed a little more challenge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
go_go_gadget Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Zaccaro and SM CWP (used a grade level behind, if you want to lower frustration levels) are good choices, and either MM3 or SM3 IP if you want to give him extra practice. I will say, though, that my son was the same, and started BA the week he turned seven, and we let the starred problems be teamwork problems in 3A and 3B while he developed maturity. Doing extra arithmetic problems would just have been obnoxious for him after doing the more puzzle-y style of BA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deerforest Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Oh, gosh, I know BA can be a challenge from that perspective at first. We started when it first came out about 3 years ago so DD was 7 and in 2nd. She was also a very sensitive perfectionist. She really, really loved BA so we worked together a lot in the early days to build up her confidence. She really liked it when I got stuck and had to double check answers. She absolutely loved it when she got the answer right, and I got it wrong. (Yea, that happened...) I think BA did almost as much for taming her perfectionism as it did for her math skills. In our case, there were so many other benefits to using BA (she had such negative opinions about all other math we had tried before BA so we had just been doing living math for a while) that we just kept going. It really did get better, and she never lost her love of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegs Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Your OP roughly describes my young 5yo. He doesn't tolerate busywork, but isn't yet mature enough to engage in problem solving with many steps. I've decided to put off BA until we've done some more work on building his frustration tolerance (with the assistance of an OT, and activities I find online), and we'll stick with our play math and occasional MM sheets in the meantime. I've found it very easy to pick the MM sheets that hit his sweet spot. I bought the dark blue series, 1-3, so I can ensure we cover material in an appropriate sequence, but be very selective with the actual work. I don't want to be scaffolding his frustration tolerance using a subject that he usually delights in - that seems risky to me! Problem solving is not the same as grit, IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 SM workbooks are ridiculously easy. Try the IP books + CWP until ready for BA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reign Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 We let my first grader accelerate through MM by skipping problems. I added the SM challenging word problems and some MEP. We cut the MEP lessons into strips and give her the more interesting activities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndOfOrdinary Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 We went the route of fuss and pout all you want, but get your butt back here and get over it. That took a full year, it was the best lesson that could have come from AoPS. I do not think the perfection issue is solved with age or maturity. It is not something you grow out of. Direct, learned coping mechanisms are necessary. I do not say that to discourage you, but more as a warning that you might have to face this behavior head on because it magnifies every year that it is not directly attended to. In this instance, providing a less rigorous curriculum which does not force him to slow down, go through a process, get the answer wrong, and then have to rework might be a grave disservice. FWIW: BA and AoPS were designed for the exact situation you are currently in. If you Google The Calculus Trap you can read an article by the author of the books explaining the need to directly handle the issues of perfectionism and "knowing the answer right away" in math students. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike in SA Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Another point -- why race? Take some time to explore mathematics at its roots. There are quite a few examples on this site where you can learn some very advanced-looking topics at a very early age (set theory, probability, logic, or geometry). Any pure math exercises will pay dividends when your child is ready to show more patience at structured work. At 7, he isn't exactly at risk of falling behind... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 We went the route of fuss and pout all you want, but get your butt back here and get over it. That took a full year, it was the best lesson that could have come from AoPS. I do not think the perfection issue is solved with age or maturity. It is not something you grow out of. Direct, learned coping mechanisms are necessary. I do not say that to discourage you, but more as a warning that you might have to face this behavior head on because it magnifies every year that it is not directly attended to. In this instance, providing a less rigorous curriculum which does not force him to slow down, go through a process, get the answer wrong, and then have to rework might be a grave disservice. FWIW: BA and AoPS were designed for the exact situation you are currently in. If you Google The Calculus Trap you can read an article by the author of the books explaining the need to directly handle the issues of perfectionism and "knowing the answer right away" in math students. I disagree a little. I think struggle is a good thing, but BA was designed for third graders to struggle, not first. There is a big maturity gap between first and third or even second. We started it in second after completing SM through 3B IPs and CWPs. I think SM workbooks are just a joke. There is something about good preparation, and I don't think those workbooks provide it. IP and CWPs certainly do. I guess we have a different approach possibly due to different kids. We could have started preA in third, but it would have been a slow and for us a more difficult undertaking. Instead we delayed and prepped with JA and preA is just exactly at his level now. I guess either approach would have gotten us to the same destination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 I'm in no hurry, but apparently he is. Lol I'll look at Zacarro's. We were doing the IP from SM and still "boring." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest J King Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Do you have any experience in using Noetic Challenge Math (not Zaccaro)? We just signed up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Marple Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 My 2nd son was like that...and still is. In first grade we accelerated up to a level where I could see that he was actually working and thinking. We used Singapore (there was no MM or BA at that time). Even though he didn't find SM particularly challenging, he was learning...very quickly. To slow down the pace and give him more challenge, I used other products from Singapore. The test bank (still available???) and CWP were always more challenging than the workbooks. Fridays were spent playing math puzzle games either on the internet or whatever I found elsewhere. He is still more advanced than his peers...his final score in his graduate level statistics course last semester was over 100%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 We went the route of fuss and pout all you want, but get your butt back here and get over it. That took a full year, it was the best lesson that could have come from AoPS. I do not think the perfection issue is solved with age or maturity. It is not something you grow out of. Direct, learned coping mechanisms are necessary. I do not say that to discourage you, but more as a warning that you might have to face this behavior head on because it magnifies every year that it is not directly attended to. In this instance, providing a less rigorous curriculum which does not force him to slow down, go through a process, get the answer wrong, and then have to rework might be a grave disservice. FWIW: BA and AoPS were designed for the exact situation you are currently in. If you Google The Calculus Trap you can read an article by the author of the books explaining the need to directly handle the issues of perfectionism and "knowing the answer right away" in math students. At 8 1/2-9, I tend to agree. My DD also needed that lesson, and AOPS provided it in spades. But when she reached 3rd grade level math, she was 5. BA would have been cute, but I don't think she could have handled it yet then. She wasn't ready for that lesson. Singapore and Life of Fred provided that development-and BA was still there, waiting, when she WAS ready for them at age 8, was still fun, and was still brain stretching. Similarly, while she loved reading the Island and town levels of MCT early, she really wasn't ready for the writing and able to get the full "meat"of the program until age 8-or, exactly the age the program was meant for. There are some programs that are written to be brain stretching for GT kids when they get to the point that they're really ready for that brain stretching. And I don't think it's a coincidence that 3rd grade was picked as the place to start publishing BA,or that MCT starts his LA with grade 3. Because it was right about at age 8 that DD's maturity really clicked and she could truly handle not only above grade level content, but significant challenge as well. It was a major developmental leap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Has anyone mentioned the Zaccaro books? :D You might also cherry-pick problems from the MEP materials. They are fun and puzzle-ly (and free for the download). Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCal_Bear Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 I will also "second" SM IP and CWP & Zacarro. I will also suggest you consider Cleo Borac's Challenge Math books as well. Possibly Balance Benders from Critical Thinking Co and Hands on Equations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 I will also "second" SM IP and CWP & Zacarro. I will also suggest you consider Cleo Borac's Challenge Math books as well. Possibly Balance Benders from Critical Thinking Co and Hands on Equations. Go Bears! Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BooksandBoys Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 My first grader isn't ready for BA quite yet either, but I solved the problem of Singapore being too easy by switching him from the workbook to the IP and CWP when he was doing 2B. He had to work just enough. I'm hopeful that he is ready for BA soon because those comics on my shelf taunt him constantly. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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