AmandaVT Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 DS finished MM 3B in June and we started MM 4A in August. He's retained his math facts and can add, subtract, multiply and divide just fine. He's struggling with MM 4A and I'm trying to figure out what to do. I think the problem is maybe the the problems need him to infer more? 5. A clerk in the store rings up all the items the customer buys, gets the customer's money,and figures out the change. Which calculations on the right would give you the amount of change the customer receives? a. $50 – $1.26 – $6.55 – $0.22 – $5 b. $50 + $1.26 + $6.55 + $0.22 + $5 c. $50 – ($1.26 + $6.55 + $0.22 + $5) He can do the calculations just fine, but had a hard time matching the words in the problem to the numbers if that makes sense. The fact that the text didn't say "A customer had $50 and bought items for $1.26....." tripped him up and he wasn't able to look at a, b and c and think to himself "oh, it looks like the customer started with $50. 6. Describe a shopping situation where you need to do these calculations: $10 - 4 x $1.20 He struggled with this one too - he figured out the answer to the number sentence no problem, but couldn't articulate the shopping situation. I walked him through it, said that maybe the customer bought 4 granola bars that each cost $1.20 and he paid with a $10 bill, but he didn't get there on his own. 10. Write a single number sentence that tells you the change if you buy a book for $7, a ball for $5, and pay with a $20 bill. This one he did fine. I could go back to MM3, but he was fine with that last year, so I'm thinking he'll continue to understand it. He struggled with bar models earlier in this chapter too. Looking ahead, I think he'll be fine with the next few things - rounding, estimating and place value - he just "gets" those. But I don't want to forge ahead if he's going to struggle a lot. I'm noticing that math time isn't as much fun for him as it used to be. He does love and look forward to the days we do Beast Academy, which I was originally going to use as a supplement this year. I'm wondering if I should put MM on hold for a few months, focus on Beast and come back to MM later? Does this sound like he may just need to mature a bit in his thinking in general? He's been working ahead and flying through math up until now, and I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Sorry this got rambly!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 FWIW, what you've described would not make me think he is struggling (i.e., there is a vast happy medium between flying through and struggling, IYKWIM). Chapter 1 of MM4 can be a bit of an adjustment for some students anyway. Unless there's something more critical that you haven't mentioned, I don't see a reason not to keep moving forward in MM. If you want to change things up with BA to keep things interesting, go right ahead, but that's a different question. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByGrace3 Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 That first chapter of MM 4 was a bear! 4th grade in general was tough....I would take your time and work through it together. Fwiw I believe it was worth it and 5th grade MM has been easier! ;) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 Thank you both so much! I'm so used to him picking concepts and reading through word problems so easily that it trips me up when he doesn't understand something. We'll take it slow and it's helpful to know that the first chapter of 4A was tricky for others too! Of course he took his Beast Academy book to bed tonight to read it, and also spent some time today cutting his sandwich into different types of triangles (Scalene sandwich!), so we may be increasing Beast time anyway. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Agreeing that MM4 Ch 1 was a challenge! I brought my oldest home from ps after the first quarter of 4th grade, and after a lot of research picked MM for her, and then we were both just so gobsmacked by this first chapter, I thought I had made a mistake with homeschooling, with MM, with everything! We just went through it slowly, and the rest of MM4, 5, an d 6 went great, and she's now happily doing Algebra. So I know it works! My 2nd dd is just starting with MM4, and we're taking it slow, although she's finding it less challenging than her sister did, after having doing MM3. But still, there is a ton packed into each page that first chapter! I find that running MM and BA concurrently works well here - my dd tends to do one for awhile, and then need a break, and switches to the other. They are intense in different ways, but a nice complement. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Just a wacky idea, and it may not be worth much given that I have exactly one student I have taught. Not to mention she doesn't exactly meet standard criteria... When we covered money and specifically the word problems I stumbled upon the fact that it wasn't the arithmetic, but rather the context that caused the confusion. I had to take her to the store and actually give her cash to help hr understand. Since we typically use debit cards it is definitely more nebulous of an idea. How much has he been exposed to the physical act of using money? That connection allowed my kid to link the concepts. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Just a wacky idea, and it may not be worth much given that I have exactly one student I have taught. Not to mention she doesn't exactly meet standard criteria... When we covered money and specifically the word problems I stumbled upon the fact that it wasn't the arithmetic, but rather the context that caused the confusion. I had to take her to the store and actually give her cash to help hr understand. Since we typically use debit cards it is definitely more nebulous of an idea. How much has he been exposed to the physical act of using money? That connection allowed my kid to link the concepts. It's so true. Kids can get hung up on those "real world" problems when they haven't actually had that real world experience. I notice that a lot. My dds also get caught up analyzing and critiquing the "story" in a story problem which can interfere with their actually solving it. In a timely manner, at least, first they have to discuss whether it makes sense, why it happened, what is likely to happen next . . . sometimes I think they get more mileage out of discussing math word problems than stories. :001_rolleyes: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 We (mostly) enjoyed MM (we went through 5 and then straight into Dolciani pre-algebra), but one thing we noticed consistently is that sometimes the problems were worded oddly. I chalked this up to Maria Miller not being a native speaker of English. Also, perhaps your son just needs some extra guidance on reading and interpreting word problems. Maybe for a while you can sit with him and help him think through the process. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 It's so true. Kids can get hung up on those "real world" problems when they haven't actually had that real world experience. I notice that a lot. My dds also get caught up analyzing and critiquing the "story" in a story problem which can interfere with their actually solving it. In a timely manner, at least, first they have to discuss whether it makes sense, why it happened, what is likely to happen next . . . sometimes I think they get more mileage out of discussing math word problems than stories. :001_rolleyes: Lol, yes, I have that kid. She spends the first couple minutes of a word problem changing the names of the boys to girls, then names that she prefers. She might debate the ice cream flavor choice in the story, or want to know why it matters who has more stamps because it isn't 'nice' to compare who has more or be greedy:) And on the topic of money: she kept asking 'what is change?' In the beginning and it confused me that she could set up the problems, do them, but not know what change meant! Turns out she only had really seen us pay with debit cards, the exact amount😄 After that we made a point to use cash, and if she counted the coinage she could keep it:) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 In some ways, word problems are as much about life experience as about math. Talk him through your purchases at the grocery store a few times and see if that helps him visualise the math in word problems better. ETA: I posted without first reading other posts, and I see everyone has the same idea here. :-) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My3girls Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 We had trouble with the first chapter as well. I had dd10 review a little more then edited the test and had her retake it. She did much better. Mostly, her issue was reading the whole problem and doing all the steps and not stopping with the first step. We went ahead and moved on to Chapter 2. I'm gad to know it wasn't just mine! lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 Thank you everyone. He's actually great with money and as soon as I told him that the $50 in the first example represented the money the customer had and the smaller numbers were the what the customer was purchasing, he did each one in his head quickly and was able to tell me which was correct. Where he got hung up was not figuring out on his own that the $50 was the customer's money and the other numbers represented cost of items being purchased. He's been helping me grocery shop for years now and loves to figure out costs of things and change and such. He also had great fun with a cash register for a few years. :-) The second example, he did in his head, walking me through the order of operations and telling me that he needed to multiply first and then add. If the problem had read "You head into the store with $10 and purchased 4 granola bars for $1.20 each. What was your change?" he would have had no problem. Tara, I think you've got it exactly. I think I need to help him interpret the wording on the trickier problems as needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto4inSoCal Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 We are having a hard time with MM4 also but for different reasons. DD hasn't memorized all of her multiplication tables and now it's giving her huge problems. We are reviewing math facts in the morning to get her caught up on those. We are also doing beast academy on Fridays to switch it up a bit. She loves it and it's a nice break for her from MM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leav97 Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 It's so true. Kids can get hung up on those "real world" problems when they haven't actually had that real world experience. I notice that a lot. My dds also get caught up analyzing and critiquing the "story" in a story problem which can interfere with their actually solving it. In a timely manner, at least, first they have to discuss whether it makes sense, why it happened, what is likely to happen next . . . sometimes I think they get more mileage out of discussing math word problems than stories. :001_rolleyes: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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