S/O time your 9/10 yo spends on math. Are we slow? Singapore TB/WB/IP/CWP

[matrips]

If you use singapore and do these four books, do you complete them in a typical 36 week school year? If so, how long do you take? Each day, number of days etc. and do you do all the problems? Are you sitting with the kids as they work so you can correct problems immediately? Or do you correct later and have them fix another day?

 

I'm looking at the 30-60 minutes that kids spend on math, and there is no way we can get through all four of these books in that time during a normal school year, which includes Christmas break and various other vacation days or such. We also have a coOp one day a week.

 

Are we that slow or do these four books take longer than another math curriculum would? We typically do all the problems, though this year I had them skip the practice pages unless they needed it. We finished up the text and workbook but are just beginning the CWP. Haven't started the IP. I have new 10 yos that just finished 5B for reference.

 

Last year we never really got to our IP and CWP books, so we are actually quicker this year, though it seems we spend way more time on math than others do. I'd like to be more efficient.

 

Thanks.

[Ausmumof3]

We only do the text book and workbook and some days it's a struggle to get through that in an hour. Plus ds needs me there the whole time or he just day dreams. And struggles. But I find there are other sections that end up being quite light and quick so in other years we've taken a bit longer over some bits and then got through geometry really fast at the end.

 

I haven't added the cwp or ip because I'm scared of how long it will take.

[idnib]

I posted a thread about this last year because I was really wondering how people ever got ahead of schedule.

[matrips]

So it appears that many people skip problems and don't do IP or CWP. My kids will 'get' stuff quickly, but I guess I pour on the problems for fluency instead of moving on. Also, I think the IP and CWP have such awesome problems to think out. They bring together so many of the concepts learned. Are people skipping these because they view them as too easy? Or because they just want to keep moving ahead?

[Momto4inSoCal]

We use MM and we do about 3 pages a day. There are about 200pg per book 2 books per year. So as long as we spend 133 days doing math we will finish. We do a co-op once a week and do school 36 weeks so that gives us a total of 144 days of school. We also do xtra math and they spend 10min a day on ixl but I'm cutting out ixl next year. I don't think we will do xtra math next year either. The 3 pages take about 45 min, 10 min ixl, 5 min xtra math.

[idnib]

So it appears that many people skip problems and don't do IP or CWP. My kids will 'get' stuff quickly, but I guess I pour on the problems for fluency instead of moving on. Also, I think the IP and CWP have such awesome problems to think out. They bring together so many of the concepts learned. Are people skipping these because they view them as too easy? Or because they just want to keep moving ahead?

 

I don't know. We started skipping them because I replaced them with Beast Academy as a supplement and that also has challenging problems and gives the kids a "non-Singapore" point of view.

[MrSmith]

When my kid was using SM (Standard Ed), I tortured him all year round (52 weeks) with all four books.  We did (and still do) math five days a week.  At that time he was spending maybe 30 minutes a day on WB/IP/CWP (solo), and maybe another 30 min on the Textbook with me.  He picks up concepts pretty quickly so we didn’t linger too long on any single topic.  He was able to complete the full cycle in a school year (a bit faster in the lower grades).

 

He never skipped any IP nor CWP problems.  IP went pretty quickly (on pace with TB + a week each for the exams), but CWP started to lag around L3.  By L5/L6 we were a half level behind since I only forced 30 minutes of math solo on him a day (lectures with Dad don’t count as torture – it is enlightenment :laugh:).

 

Most of the time, we skipped over 70% of the WB problems, focusing on the equivalent material in IP instead (at higher levels they don’t match so well so I had to pull out MM problem sets in lieu of WB).  I felt CWP was an important enough part of the program to make an emphasis on it (especially at the lower levels; you can only stare at 9+2 so many times).  And at the higher levels, the CWP really made him think (sometimes spending his whole half hour on a problem).  I think those really prepared him for later work.

[MrSmith]

So it appears that many people skip problems and don't do IP or CWP. My kids will 'get' stuff quickly, but I guess I pour on the problems for fluency instead of moving on. Also, I think the IP and CWP have such awesome problems to think out. They bring together so many of the concepts learned. Are people skipping these because they view them as too easy? Or because they just want to keep moving ahead?

 

Having gone through the IP and CWP, I would not classify either book as 'too easy' (in the context of what the child is supposed to have learned up to that level; of course, if you are using Algebra for the L5/L6 CWP they are easy).

 

I think the IP and CWP are integral parts of the program, and wouldn't dream of depriving my kid the satisfaction of cracking a really tough problem.  I especially loved those 'final review' parts of the IP.  Some of those questions in L5 and L6 were so hard!  Don't think my kid ever made an 80 on any exam.  I remember one time he made a  75 and was jumping up and down. :lol:

 

[SilverMoon]

I know barely anything about Singapore math.

 

My 9yo uses Horizons a grade ahead. Horizons has 160 lessons and 16 tests (that we treat as just another lesson), so 176 "days" total. The TM has extra practice pages and drill reminders that we never use; I only use the TM for the answer key. The beginning of each level is usually easy enough that they double up lessons until it gets more difficult. We have dragged them into summer a bit, but we also have Grandma for a month in December. I'd say DD/4th averages around thirty minutes a day, and never more than forty minutes. Disclaimer: She is a motivated student in general.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I used all the SM books with my older kid. We did not do every problem in every book.  There is just no way.  There were days we spent an hour or even more.  It was ok because he liked math.  I would sit with him the entire time.  Although I should point out we did math 4 days per week at that point. 

 

Now with my younger kid who is currently 9, I don't use SM.  I used it up until 4B and now we are using a book from The Critical Thinking Co.  We spend about 30 minutes to an hour 4 days per week, but that includes playing math games and not really a ton of seat work.  He is just a very different kid from my first so I try to do things in a way that is appealing to him. 

[yinanyinu]

We use Singapore Math, the Singapore version, and although the supplements are not exactly the same, DC have about six books in addition to the textbook and workbook. They do about an hour a day, every day, and we can complete a level, A and B, in each school year. The core textbook is really only for reference. The core workbook which accompanies it is what I would consider an introductory practice book. The supplements are where the real thinking and work lies. DC always breezes through the core materials, easily finishing a unit in fifteen or twenty minutes but will then labour over the supplements. They do every problem, and correct all their mistakes, which sometimes means redoing a problem multiple times. DC work at exactly their appropriate grade level based on age, and although the daily results can be discouraging, for example 50% wrong, the final tests always turn out well, if that means anything.

 

They do the full battery in each unit before moving to the next unit. I correct the first book's work in the unit DC are working on while they work on the second book. Then they go back and correct the first book's mistakes while I correct the second book. So, for any given unit, they only do the problems in two books max (workbook and easiest supplement) before they have to stop and make sure they've understood what is required. I organise the books based on difficulty. For the same material, some supplements just give additional practice comparable to the core workbook, others give more challenging, layered problems. My progression is textbook, workbook, then supplements from easy to hard.

 

Of course it's dreary, as most work is, but it's not TOO dreary, since the difficulty varies.

 

HTH

[Farrar]

I can't imagine anyone is skipping the CWP because they think they're too easy.

 

We haven't done all of those at once (and now we don't use Singapore at all), but I will just say that some kids are slower. Mine are slow workers. If I made them do absolutely everything before moving on, they'd just slow down even more. We'd probably still be in 3rd grade math or something.

[Ad astra]

Having gone through the IP and CWP, I would not classify either book as 'too easy' (in the context of what the child is supposed to have learned up to that level; of course, if you are using Algebra for the L5/L6 CWP they are easy).

 

I think the IP and CWP are integral parts of the program, and wouldn't dream of depriving my kid the satisfaction of cracking a really tough problem. I especially loved those 'final review' parts of the IP. Some of those questions in L5 and L6 were so hard! Don't think my kid ever made an 80 on any exam. I remember one time he made a 75 and was jumping up and down. :lol:

 

I agree with this. We are currently on 2A, and haven't skipped any problems in TB, WB, IP and CWP so far. We do TB and WB first (which usually takes about four months for the grade) and devote the rest of the time to IP and CWP along with fact drills. We school year round and use the Common Core edition.

 

ETA: But not everyone works at the same pace, nor do we all need the most challenging curriculum. If my kids were struggling and I were running out of time, I'd drop CWP (and even IP) or look into other less challenging but solid math curriculum options.

[vaquitita]

Nm

Edited December 12, 2015 by vaquitita