If you use Singapore math, how many days/week do you teach math?

[CHSgirl]

I am a complete newbie starting to homeschool my 3rd and 1st grader this week!

 

I purchased Singapore Standard 1A and 3A and, in reviewing the home instructors guide, I noticed that they broke it down into 43 lessons for 1st grade and 79 lessons for 3rd grade. Obviously, there's 90 days in the first half of the academic year. 

 

Should I have my 3rd grader do math almost daily and the 1st grader only a few days/week?  Don't want to overload them, but certainly want to keep up the pace! 

 

Thank you!

[Dinsfamily]

We've always done math 5 days/week from K on up.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[smily]

Yes, math is each school day.

 

One lesson in Singapore math may not correspond to one day, especially for first grade.

 

It's a little tricky when you start homeschooling to view the curriculum as merely a tool you use to teach. After some time you will master it, instead of it mastering you.

Even my super math whiz had to pause and hover over those addition /subtraction facts and number bonds.

 

Best wishes as you begin!

[6packofun]

Every school day in every grade.

[nature girl]

We also do every school day...We definitely did less than a lesson a day, and adjusted going faster/slower when it was obvious DD was understanding easily (sometimes skipped several pages) or struggling so that we needed to back up, and do more work with manipulatives to master the concepts.

[EKS]

Five days per week.

[sweetpea3829]

We school 4 days a week, so take that into consideration...

 

We do new math *almost* every day.  When I plan, I plan an entire half year at once, write everything down, pull out relevant worksheets, etc.  I try to build a review day into the schedule here and there...usually when a Singapore unit is just ending.

 

 

[Steven]

We followed the weekly schedule in the HIG, marking in both the textbook and workbook were we wanted to by the end of Friday. I tried to spread the number of pages out evenly by day, but did also pay attention to the individual lessons. I didn't care if the workbook got behind the corresponding textbook lesson by a day, since I figured it was good way to cement things in DD's memory. But in most cases, I think we did the corresponding lessons on the same day. I did split the math lessons into two sessions: morning for the TB and afternoon for the WB. That was a strategy to make math less onerous and to help cement the lesson in her memory. We usually did lessons 5 days a week, but sometimes compressed it into 4 if the number of pages to cover was not too great (especially if there was a holiday that week that we wanted to take off for).

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We do math every day.  Each day corresponds roughly to one exercise in the SM WB or 1 review in the TB or WB.  Some days a lesson or review needs more time, and for some sections, we race through (early grades: clocks, volume, measurement, graphs, geometry... these sections are usually VERY easy for kids who are in a home where things like "Point to the triangle!" are part of bringing up a toddler... lol)  

 

Do not be afraid if your kids "get it" and move more quickly and finish 3 books in a year (a, b, and a of the next level).  That's the advantage of being able to move at child's pace!  And by the same token, if you are working diligently but need more than a year to finish a SM year... don't sweat it.  Keep up the daily forward motion and give your child the time to build a good foundation.  

[fralala]

We do some math daily. But a new lesson or new material? No way! I only teach math when I decide the kids are ready to move on, and with some lessons I just have to work with the manipulatives with them a few days in a row without even moving on to the textbook or workbook. I also prefer to use the multiple workbooks they put out for a variety of practice exercises rather than charging ahead, and we also will spend a day here and there just playing a math game for fun and to cement the material. I find the HIG valuable for giving me ideas for lesson presentation, but I don't rely on it for telling me what I should be doing with my kids on a daily basis.

[Dinsfamily]

We do math every day. Each day corresponds roughly to one exercise in the SM WB or 1 review in the TB or WB. Some days a lesson or review needs more time, and for some sections, we race through (early grades: clocks, volume, measurement, graphs, geometry... these sections are usually VERY easy for kids who are in a home where things like "Point to the triangle!" are part of bringing up a toddler... lol)

 

Do not be afraid if your kids "get it" and move more quickly and finish 3 books in a year (a, b, and a of the next level). That's the advantage of being able to move at child's pace! And by the same token, if you are working diligently but need more than a year to finish a SM year... don't sweat it. Keep up the daily forward motion and give your child the time to build a good foundation.

I think this is a great point. The A&B levels are not equal when it comes to difficulty so you may breeze through one and take more that a semester on another. When Ds12 was starting out, he did 14 lessons the first day we got 1A and finished the whole book quickly, but he did not breeze through 1B. I don't really schedule Singapore Math, we just do the next thing adjusting for difficulty as we go. Some of my boys HATE reviews so it could take us up to 3 days to get through each one of those even though they have the material down.

[aprilleigh]

The lessons are not meant to be a daily schedule. The reason for this is every kid is different, particularly with math, and some topics may take a lot longer than others with one kid while another kid might spend roughly the same time on each, or even flip the relative amount of time needed for mastery. Math is something you should pencil in as approximate dates you expect to hit certain topics, but don't schedule the details more than a couple days (a week at most) ahead. DS flew through addition and number bonds very quickly, but got bogged down for a while in subtraction. In our case we stayed on schedule pretty well because I had supplementary materials for him and when he was bogged down on a topic we did less of those because we didn't have time. We also spent more time on math than WTM recommended because DS likes math (even when he struggled to get something) so we had time to include a couple extras (Challenging Word Problems, Intensive Practice, and some math puzzles/games I picked up on Amazon or created myself).

[Sk8ermaiden]

5 days a week. I don't pay any attention to the schedule in the HIG, we just do the next thing until we're done. 

[Tanikit]

Mine are afterschooling at the moment and we still do Singapore Maths daily but now it is only for a brief period of time. When homeschooling we also did it daily, but I used a back-up curriculum too for more depth.

 

I do not decide how much they will do but make sure they know the concepts - sometimes if we are stuck we do carry on (to something like time or geometry that is not related to what they were stuck on) and then I make sure I cycle back to what they did not understand or get another curriculum or method to teach it or a different set of manipulatives to try again. Sometimes I find just having had time for a new concept to sink in is enough and the work that was hard a few weeks earlier is suddenly done with ease. 

 

You are not stuck to a curriculum or to a certain lesson each day when homeschooling - you teach to your child and his/her needs. Good luck with the year and enjoy the homeschooling.

[Milknhoney]

For 1A & 1B, I managed to get through doing three days a week. We have just the text and the WB, no HIG. Usually at the end of the textbook section, if two WB exercises were prescribed, then two would get done in one sitting. If more, or if the material was challenging, then it would get stretched out over two days. 

 

For 3A & 3B, we did four days a week. Each day would include at least one WB page or one textbook practice. Sometimes the really long text practices needed to get split out over two days. (Maybe we didn't have to do that until 4 or 5... I can't remember). Sometimes if the lesson was super easy, then two or more WB exercises could be completed at once. 

 

We got away with 4 days/week all the way through 6. When we started Dimensions, we had to bump up to 5 days.

[CHSgirl]

This is so incredibly helpful. I cannot thank you all enough!