Math: What can I cut?

[jmarchman]

Hi all,

 

I need help cutting down on busy work for my 10 year old.  What should I cut?  What is redundant?  What would you keep (or add)?

 

Math U See (epsilon)- 1 sheet daily

Mad Minute (1 minute fact review)

6 Mental Math problems (singapore) daily

1 Process Skill problem (singapore) daily

 

I want to add in Beast Academy.  That feels like it will be too much.  What can I take out?

 

Thanks so much in advance!!

 

Jennifer

 

 

[Lori D.]

Without knowing anything about your student or your teaching goals: my thought would be to streamline to 2 items (a spine and a supplement), and then schedule either by day of the week or by time amount.

 

Suggestions:

 

1. streamline: schedule by day of the week

- drop everything but MUS

- bump MUS up to 2 pages a day, 3x/week (3 consecutive days to allow absorbing of new concept/working with it/getting solid with it)

- do BA 2x/week, remaining days of week

 

2. streamline: 2 math sessions a day

Key here is to NOT bludgeon your student with double math lessons, but instead, set a reasonable overall amount of time for math for the day (for a 10yo, I'd suggest 45-60 minutes at most), with the spine math getting about twice the overall time as the supplement, and once you hit the end of the scheduled time period, "loop" any remaining portion of either or both math lessons to the next day. So:

- morning session with spine math, longer, most focused attention: 30-40 minutes -- MUS

- afternoon with supplement: 15-20 min -- BA

 

 

You can always go back to Singapore as a supplement if BA doesn't work out, but I wouldn't try and do more than 2 math programs at a time, and I would also drop the Mad Minute, unless it really does only take 1 minute AND it really does help DS. Or, if you have been doing math fact drill for several years now and your student is still struggling, you might need to switch to something else entirely to help that click for your student -- skip count songs, a visual/story based math facts approach, or triangle flash cards to learn "fact families" (4 math facts derived from a "family" of 3 numbers, which reduces the number of facts to memorize by 75%). Or, just hand your student a math facts table and let them use that to help them with multiplying/dividing -- often, students start memorizing when they see it is faster than having to look up the math fact when trying to do long division or multiplying large numbers…

 

BEST of luck in figuring out how to "do it all" (lol) in a way that works for your family without burning out on math and hating it. ;) Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Lori D.

[zarabellesmom]

Does he still need fact drill and mental math practice or does he have those skills down pat? My ten year old (finally finally finally) has all her facts solid and now just using them daily is enough practice. Same with mental math. She's pretty lazy when it comes to written work so the problem is not in getting her to do mental math, but in trying to get her to write something down! Those are the two things I would cut but I don't know your student.

 

I've never used MUS. Is there a lot on a page? Does it take long? Beast can be a pretty big time suck and if you are committed to doing both, you might alternate days. So maybe on MWF do Beast and one Process Skill Problem and then on TuTh do MUS and one Process Skill problem. Or the reverse.

 

My oldest left Math in Focus for Beast Academy entirely (outside of fact drill) and it was a great move for her. My youngest is in BA3B and continues MM as a review on the side because she seems to need more review to keep things fresh. My youngest does one page of MM2 review workbook and a little BA3 (however much she likes) and then about 15 minutes of multiplication fact practice on the computer (Reflex Math) daily. We split it up over the course of the day so it's not overwhelming. This has seemed to work pretty well for us this year.

[MrsWeasley]

Beast Academy is a complete program in itself. If you hear the call of the Beast, I would leave the others behind!

[jmarchman]

Thanks, everyone.  I think what I am going to do is have him finish MUS arithmetic, then have him do a couple Beast Academy books before moving him into AoPS PreAlgebra.  Thanks for being a sounding board!

[Janeway]

I would drop MUS to fit in BA. They are both great programs, but they are complete. You will burn your child out with busy work if you try to follow two complete programs at once.

[Janeway]

I will add though, if you switch to BA, he should take the placement test. Their scope and sequence is very different. And keep using the placement test before each level. When my child left public school and then used SM, he needed 4A but not 4b and so on. Something like that.

[Ellie]

Hi all,

 

I need help cutting down on busy work for my 10 year old.  What should I cut?  What is redundant?  What would you keep (or add)?

 

Math U See (epsilon)- 1 sheet daily

Mad Minute (1 minute fact review)

6 Mental Math problems (singapore) daily

1 Process Skill problem (singapore) daily

 

I want to add in Beast Academy.  That feels like it will be too much.  What can I take out?

 

Thanks so much in advance!!

 

Jennifer

 

I'd have to choose one major publisher and drop the rest, so either Singapore or MUS. Is Beast Academy a complete math course? Then use that. Only one of them.

[Kerileanne99]

One idea:

When my kiddo needed a bit of fact recall practice but HATED the traditional mad minute/timed practice things I gave her ONE 3 digit by 3 digit multiplication problem and ONE long division problem as a warm up on the dry erase board. They took very little time and practiced those facts.

 

Wr also split math into days and sessions...

I also leave up 'challenge problems' from various sources, especially Beast, that she can choose to solve ( or not) whenever for a small treat.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

If fact practice is still needed, I would delegate that to a screen if possible.  Lots of good apps and games for that.  I use SM mental math as part of our warmup before I teach a main lesson.

[mamamoose]

Beast is so much different than other math, dd does it just for fun. It's kind of like Mad Libs for math! Lol we are only in 3A but thinking of dropping Right Start for her and doing beast--I hadn't thought about skipping some of the levels in Beast though, so I might consider that. 3A is tough for sure--and dd is technically 5th grade, so that might be a good plan!

[mamamoose]

If fact practice is still needed, I would delegate that to a screen if possible. Lots of good apps and games for that. I use SM mental math as part of our warmup before I teach a main lesson.

What is SM mental math? Is that an ap?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

What is SM mental math? Is that an ap?

 

No, I just meant the mental math problems at the back of the singapore math HIGs.

 

The math apps we like are DragonBox Numbers, Dragon Box 1 and 2, XGerms Addition, Big Brainz, Archimedes Playground...