CLE first grade Math and LA

[Kendmbru784]

Hey everyone, I'm a newbie here in this forum and to homeschooling in general. I'm homeschooling my first grader daughter after two years in parochial school. I had originally intended to homeschool from the beginning and attempted pre-k, but I had some underlying health issues (unaddressed thyroid craziness that is now resolved, yay!) that prompted my husband and me to put her in a local Christian school for pre-k and K. That was quite a season, I'm glad to be back to homeschooling. My husband and I were in public school K straight up through public university so this is ALL new to us. Our families think we are insane. We are surrounded by a big local homeschooling community in rural Maine thankfully. So that's my background...

 

We are 9 weeks into the school year and I'm starting to doubt my choice of CLE for math and LA. The amount of workbook pages has been hard for my daughter, she gets the concepts i just think the "drill and kill" format pushes her over the edge if we do all the things. It's been drudgery\tears\endless lately. I can skip some of the review right? I doubt myself so much in math, and though it makes *me* feel good to check all the boxes I think it's really too much for her. I mixed in a sample worksheet of Mammoth Math today and she LOVED it, mainly because it wasn't 4 pages of work and the visualization of math problems made sense. I don't want to skip all over with curricula (plus I'm on a budget!!), but mixing some Singapore style math in occasionally wouldn't hurt right? Or maybe we really need something else? Drilling and memorization is familiar to me while Singapore is new!

 

As for the CLE LA I am pretty happy with it, but the spelling utterly confuses me. They ask her to spell 6 or so words (we're on LU 104) that are loosely related but not enough that she can spell them well off the top of her head? Like she had to spell the words "crab" and "preach" today, I see they both have consonant digraphs at the beginning but the vowel and endings are completely different. I mean I guess this isn't how I learned to spell? It doesn't seem to flow right, and she isn't doing great with that board of the lessons. I'm looking into All About Spelling Level 1 right now. I thought CLE LA as an all-in-one would save me money and time but I think in was mistaken.

 

Other than that she's a very strong reader. Her handwriting needs a lot of work, but I found out her kindergarten teacher year only got 1\3 of the way through the K Handwriting Without Tears workbook and didn't do any Other practice. So we're playing catch up with that right now.

 

Anyway, I wrote a lot, sorry... I apologize for any typos, I'm on my kindle with my baby crawling near me. Thanks for reading my jumbled thoughts!!

 

Kendra

[OneStepAtATime]

Welcome to the boards and to homeschooling!  

 

1.  I love CLE math but it isn't for everyone and I never used the 100 series.  From what I have heard it is too dry and abstract and long for a lot of 1st graders.  If MM works better, try switching to that for at least 1st grade.  If it works long term, great.  If not you can seek out other options later.  Also, though, YES if your child is grasping the concepts then you can cut out a lot of the review.  Feel free.  Do you have the TM?  Do the new material from the TM together on a dry erase board.  Be as interactive as possible.  Then have her do the new material in the WB plus the review material of the problems from the day before.  The rest of the review material just pick and choose a few problems in areas she seems a bit weak.  In fact, you might skim through the week's lessons on a weekend and select certain review problems from each area, done only on certain days.  Rotate them.  As long as your child is understanding and retaining you don't need to do every single thing every single day.

 

2.  She may do better if you incorporate a lot more games and puzzles and physical math into your day instead of endless workbook pages.  Play store.  Use dice.  Do Shut the Box.  Look at this thread I linked.  While much of this will be too old for her, some ideas might work well.  

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/?hl=%20looking%20%20some%20%20relaxed%20%20math

 

3.  I never used CLE LA but again I think it is probably too dry and makes too many leaps and is too long for a bright 1st grader that isn't into lots of workbooks.  Not to say it wouldn't be a good program later on.  For this age, though, I would be doing more hands on.  Maybe AAS would work better.

 

4.  For writing, don't be afraid to keep the physical writing lessons separate from her learning to get thoughts out.  In other words, the physical act of writing involves a lot of subsystems that don't always develop at the same time.  She may need small, short daily lessons in the physical act of writing.  While that and spelling are being worked on you might consider scribing for her for more creative and content writing so her thoughts are not held back by spelling/physical writing.

 

5.  Kids that this age frequently learn a lot better with less seat work and more interaction and opportunities to explore and think through things and play around with the concepts. 

 

6.  If you are interested and you think she might like it, for next year's math you might look into Beast Academy.  It works as a primary source for some but works as a great very in depth math supplement for others.  The goal with Beast is not plug and chug for getting a correct answer but with learning how to think mathematically.  It can be challenging but in a good way, teaching how to think through the math concepts.

Edited October 25, 2017 by OneStepAtATime

[wendyroo]

I have a preschooler working through the CLE kindergarten books, and we like them quite a bit, but when I looked at the first grade materials I knew they would not be for us. 

 

The math lessons looked long, boring and rote, with too much writing and not enough challenging thinking problems.

 

The language arts looked very dry and seemed to emphasis spelling by sight instead of learning any rules.  In one of the samples, the children were to choose between "ew" or "oo" to complete words.  It seemed tantamount to forcing the kids to just guess since there is no way of really determining the correct answer other than prolonged reading experience which they simply would not yet have.  To add insult to injury, one of the questions was fl__; now, wait one gosh darn minute - flew and floo are both words, so they are asking first graders a trick spelling question!!

 

Along with my preschooler, I also have 1st and 3rd graders (and a tag-along toddler), and both my older boys have used Math Mammoth and AAS since kindergarten and are thriving with them.  To round out language arts we also use Writing with Ease for both boys, The Sentence Family as a brief grammar introduction for the 1st grader, and Michael Clay Thompson grammar for the 3rd grader.

 

Wendy

[Ottakee]

Mine did very well with CLE math.  If she is understanding the concepts well I would cut back on the work.  Maybe do the flashcards one day and the written drill sheets the next.  Cut down on the number of problems she has to do.  You can usually see what is new and what is review.  

 

[Syllieann]

If she likes math mammoth, switch to math mammoth. It’s a great curriculum and very inexpensive. If you don’t want to switch you could look at using miquon red along with regular cle lessons. You could replace the quiz and review days with miquon work. Or you could use fan math along with cle. My dd uses the fan math process skills and fan math speed maths in place of the cle quizzes and reviews. She needs the spiral of cle, but I want the explicit instruction in problem solving and mental math that fan math (or math mammoth or other Asian style math) provides.

[Insertcreativenamehere]

My boys used CLE math and language arts very successfully for grades 2-5. 

 

I tried both with my daughter in kindergarten and 1st grade and she hated them. Too much writing, too much repetition. She's just not a CLE kid.

 

I do attribute my boys' strong math and language arts skills, at least in part to CLE but my daughter is getting a great foundation, too -- just using other materials. That's why it's so great that we have so many options!