How much time spent on review/easy stuff, etc? (math)

[Janeway]

We stopped school in the spring at end of April. We did not start up again until end of August. Upon restarting, I found the kids to be quite behind, as if, they had forgotten much of what they learned last year. We had been using Singapore math, but since I had a BJU math on the shelf, son wanted to do it. Later, I bought one for daughter.

For son, he is 11 yrs old (just turned 11) and in 5th grade. We are about six weeks in and his memory seems well jogged now. He says he loves BJU math, but I suspect this is because it involves so much review. It is easy for him, nothing is new. 

I find myself anxious, like we are not really doing much except reviewing every day. I would like to get on with Singapore Math now. Would it be terrible to run both programs at the same time? I can see the benefit of BJU. It is very slow and incremental. It is giving tons of review and leaving him feeling very confident and good at math. But he was already good at math and now I am starting to feel a little bit like we are no longer doing math at all. 

How much math in a day is reasonable? I was thinking of either doing 2 BJU lessons a day, or 1 BJU and 1 Singapore math. Would this be too much?

[Ellie]

14 minutes ago, Janeway said:

How much math in a day is reasonable? I was thinking of either doing 2 BJU lessons a day, or 1 BJU and 1 Singapore math. Would this be too much?

Is the BJUP a lower grade level? If not, then I don't know why you'd want to switch, or why you're unhappy with your ds's progress. BJUP is an excellent math series.

[Janeway]

39 minutes ago, Ellie said:

Is the BJUP a lower grade level? If not, then I don't know why you'd want to switch, or why you're unhappy with your ds's progress. BJUP is an excellent math series.

It is BJU 5, but he had completed Singapore Math through 5A. 

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

It is BJU 5, but he had completed Singapore Math through 5A. 

It sounds like he needs BJUP 5, even if it's just for some time to feel really confident about his math.

Also, maybe Singapore isn't really his cup of tea.

[SilverMoon]

I had a very similar situation this year with my 7th grader. She's good at math and should have been in a challenging prealg, but she was making novice mistakes in concepts I KNOW she's covered well. And she was acting up about the word prealg.  I let her back up to pieces of an old book with some Pizzazz on targeted concepts. This worked fabulously on the "summer brain rust," but like you after awhile it felt so.. redundant. Time wasting. I did take the easy book away before she finished it and handed her an easier prealg book that doesn't look anything like elementary math books. It started easy peasy, but getting used to a more mature format was part of the lesson. There was attitude at first. 😛 Today she finishes chapter two and she's made peace with the new book. She's doing fabulous. My only regret might be not pulling her sooner. 🙂

You already know he can excel with Singapore. I'd just remove the BJU book and say we're doing SM now. If he's like mine I wouldn't give any advance warning; that's just an opportunity to argue. 😄  

Extra review too... maybe? Does he really need it? My 10yo does Beast as his primary math and we do a math enrichment on the side. Things like Hands on Equations, Math Olympiad problems, DragonBox. It's small and not at the same time, or something he can do on his own. He does fine with this workload. 

[Porridge]

Since Singapore is master rather than spiral, I find that it does help DS to have a separate “review” portion of math everyday. DD did not need that, but DS definitely does. We use the Intensive Practice book a half year behind and do 1-2 pages per day for review. Then we do our main Singapore lesson. Review usually takes 5-15 minutes. It has been helpful for solidifying concepts and skills.

[Sarah0000]

I don't think its too much. My kids run two math sessions most days. Usually one is drill/review and the program I use varies. Right now my 8yo is doing BA5 for main and Hands On Equations for review. My 5yo is doing Miquon Blue for main and either BA2 or LoF Dogs for review.

[RootAnn]

How about 3 lessons of Singapore a week and a set time working on BJU the other two days? So, new lessons of Singapore on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. He does BJU for 45 minutes (or whatever your normal math time is) on Monday and Thursdays. Bit of both.  

[ieta_cassiopeia]

Nearly all students benefit from some sort of review, and nearly all benefit from some sort of progression. I'd reintroduce Singapore, but run some sort of review (which can be BJU or another program - note that if you've done 5A of Singapore, parts of BJU may be as little as half a book behind). Some Grade 4 worksheets would also be helpful for additional review confidence (don't tell them it's Grade 4 though, just treat it as variety in review materials). Also, check that you have at some point covered everything in BJU before using it as review - different series put different parts of maths in a different order, and if there's an element that was fairly fresh at the end of last semester, then the long break will probably have caused it to be dropped entirely.

 

Review will likely be more substantial this year than before, but making progress slowly is also a good plan.

[Ellie]

On 10/10/2020 at 11:19 AM, Okbud said:

What are the odds that you start doing two math programs and come back here like ... My son who previously was very happy to do BJU math now says he hated math and does not want to do any of it...? 

My vote is just keep going with bju 

My thoughts exactly.