Singapore CWP too challenging?

[nature girl]

We finished Standards 1B about a month ago, and DD seems to have a very solid understanding and is good at mental math...But we've done very few word problems, so rather than start on 2A, I decided to go deeper instead of broader and try the Grade 1 CWP.

 

Some of the problems are reasonably easy, DD doesn't have any problems with them, but others are just too hard for her, I have to walk her through them. And walking her through 50% of the problems just doesn't seem to be helping her learn much...These aren't even the problems marked as challenging...I think I may not be doing a good job of teaching her how to think through the problems. An example of one of the problems we worked on today:

 

A class had 3 fewer boys than girls. After 2 girls left the class, only 5 girls remained. How many boys were there?

 

This is basically simple algebra, but I don't think DD is conceptually ready to understand manipulating variables. Is there a way of working through these types of problems to help a 6yo understand how to tackle them? Can they somehow be worked through with manipulatives, for example? (I've showed her to start with the concrete, in this problem the number of girls remaining, and work backward...and she can do it when I vaguely scaffold the next steps, but when faced with this type of problem on her own she just can't figure out where to start, even after having done a few problems that are somewhat similar.)

[Arcadia]

We skipped SM1 but are you familiar with bar models? Your example can be easily explained using bar models.Look at the addition, subtraction ones in the below link

http://www.mathplayground.com/thinkingblocks.html

 

 

 

[EKS]

Singapore introduced bar models in the 3rd grade books (I think).  You might want to hold off on doing the CWP until then.  Also, sometimes it helps to run the CWP either a semester or a year behind.

 

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the new version of the CWP (well, new in my opinion!) has problems that are too hard for the level they are in.  The old version's problems built beautifully on one another, but the new version has some doozies sort of randomly placed.  Which is annoying, because it used to be fabulous.

[Jackie]

The conversations with DD go something like this...

 

Me: What do you need to figure out?

DD: How many boys

Me: what do you know about the number of boys?

DD: three less than the girls. So I need the number of girls and subtract three.

Me: ok, then, how many girls are there?

DD: um, there are 5+2 of them, so 7. So, minus 3 makes 4 boys.

 

Usually I could walk her through one problem and then she would only need me to say "look at what you need to figure out and what you already know" and she was able to figure it out from there as a 2-step arithmetic problem rather than using the variable.

[nature girl]

Jackie, that's basically what I was doing, but she needed more prompting than that, wasn't able to take the leaps between what she knew and what she'd be able to figure out next from it. And when we worked through the problems that way, I'm not sure she actually "got" what we were doing and why, so wasn't able to work similar steps on her own for the following problems without similar scaffolding.

 

We skipped SM1 but are you familiar with bar models? Your example can be easily explained using bar models.Look at the addition, subtraction ones in the below link

http://www.mathplayground.com/thinkingblocks.html

 

Thank you! Just looking through their sample problems, I think she'd still need me to work through them with the bars, but at least she'd be able to better visualize what we're doing. It does give me ideas on how to work through problems with multilink cubes too.

 

 

Singapore introduced bar models in the 3rd grade books (I think).  You might want to hold off on doing the CWP until then.  Also, sometimes it helps to run the CWP either a semester or a year behind.

 

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the new version of the CWP (well, new in my opinion!) has problems that are too hard for the level they are in.  The old version's problems built beautifully on one another, but the new version has some doozies sort of randomly placed.  Which is annoying, because it used to be fabulous.

 

Okay, good to know. I may just have her do the problems I know she'll be able to understand, and save the rest. The version we have is dated 2010. (I bought it used.) Is this the most recent version, or is there an older one? If there's an older version that's better structured, I may ditch this and try to find it.

 

 

[EKS]

The version we have is dated 2010. (I bought it used.) Is this the most recent version, or is there an older one? If there's an older version that's better structured, I may ditch this and try to find it.

 

This is the edition that I liked: https://www.amazon.com/Primary-Mathematics-Challenging-Problems-Level/dp/981252844X/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1470782469&sr=8-18&keywords=challenging+word+problems

Edited August 9, 2016 by EKS

[ScoutTN]

Just do the easier ones and some that are challenging, but possible and skip the others until another year.

[Dinsfamily]

This is the edition that I liked: https://www.amazon.com/Primary-Mathematics-Challenging-Problems-Level/dp/981252844X/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1470782469&sr=8-18&keywords=challenging+word+problems

These are the version I have and love them. I bought all 6 books when ds12 was in Kindy and use them as no consumables. They are really great. I think CWP is essential for SM from level 3 on, but we've really enjoyed books 1 & 2 as well. The practice problems are right on par with the workbook and the challenging problems stretch the student a bit. A few in level 4 and above have been pretty tough, but earlier levels are usually pretty straightforward. Bar diagrams aren't necessary until level 3.