Math Troubles

[Kela]

Both of my kids love math and it is their favorite subject.  I've been doing MUS and this is our first year with this curriculum. Oldest is in MUS Alpha and youngest is in MUS Primer. Both are running into snags.

My oldest is on lesson 14 in Alpha. She has been doing fantastic. Learning her facts easily and acing her tests. Just this week, though, she has been falling apart over math. She is learning "doubles plus one" facts. So, for example, 3 + 4 and 5 + 6, etc. She seems to be getting mixed up with the tricks and rules and it has been tears every day. She has never cried over math before. She is just shutting down. I'm pulling her away from it for now and we are going to work on something else for a while, but I don't want to get away from it for too long as she will start to forget and will be even more frustrated and further behind in the long run.

My kindergartener is in Primer. She loves math, especially adding. She learns her facts quickly. She understands place value in the hundreds, she can count up into the 300's with some prompts. I've never taught her to subitize, but she can subitize objects as high as 10. I ask her how she just knows how many there are without counting and she shrugs and says, "I just know. It's not too little, it's not too much, it's just right." If you give her $10 in a store, she is a whiz at figuring out what she can get with the amount of money she has. She used to plow though a lesson a day and beg for more. BUT she is totally confused on numbers. She can't seem to tell the difference between 12 and 21, 13 or 30. I'm having her do Christian Light because she can't go any further in MUS until she gets her numbers straightened out. 

Any thoughts or suggestions that might help? 

[maize]

How old are your children?

Number reversals (12 and 21) are a super common issue with young children who don't yet have a strong sense of directionality.

13 and 30 may be a problem of the sounds of the number names being similar, you may need to really emphasize TEEN vs TY every time you say them.

[EKS]

3 minutes ago, Kela said:

My oldest is on lesson 14 in Alpha. She has been doing fantastic. Learning her facts easily and acing her tests. Just this week, though, she has been falling apart over math. She is learning "doubles plus one" facts. So, for example, 3 + 4 and 5 + 6, etc. She seems to be getting mixed up with the tricks and rules and it has been tears every day. She has never cried over math before. She is just shutting down. I'm pulling her away from it for now and we are going to work on something else for a while, but I don't want to get away from it for too long as she will start to forget and will be even more frustrated and further behind in the long run.

I'd break this down and sit on it for a week or two.  Just do doubles.  Just do doubles plus 1.  Then combine them.  Use manipulatives.  She will get it.

6 minutes ago, Kela said:

My kindergartener is in Primer. She loves math, especially adding. She learns her facts quickly. She understands place value in the hundreds, she can count up into the 300's with some prompts. I've never taught her to subitize, but she can subitize objects as high as 10. I ask her how she just knows how many there are without counting and she shrugs and says, "I just know. It's not too little, it's not too much, it's just right." If you give her $10 in a store, she is a whiz at figuring out what she can get with the amount of money she has. She used to plow though a lesson a day and beg for more. BUT she is totally confused on numbers. She can't seem to tell the difference between 12 and 21, 13 or 30. I'm having her do Christian Light because she can't go any further in MUS until she gets her numbers straightened out. 

First of all, I'm stunned that there is a person on this earth that can subitize objects as high as 10--so bravo!

It sounds as though she is having some trouble with notation, specifically place value.  I'd just keep working on place value until it clicks, however you want to do it.

[Not_a_Number]

As in, she sees a number and can't read it properly, or she sees a number and wouldn't be able to give you that much of something? 

[UHP]

1 hour ago, Kela said:

She can't seem to tell the difference between 12 and 21, 13 or 30.

Does she also have this problem with say 64 and 46, or is it always a teens number that trips her up?

For early math learners, there are four categories of two-digit numbers:

Category 1: "Easy -ty" numbers. They include the numbers in the 40s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s that do not end in a zero. Kids catch on right away: to read something like "64", simply say the first digit, then say "ty", then say the second digit.

Category 2: "Hard -ty" numbers. These are numbers that do not end in a zero in the 20s, 30s, and 50s. Kids have to learn that when reading such a number we start by saying "fif", "thir", and "twen" instead of "five", "three", and "two" 

Category 3: "Decade" numbers. These are the numbers 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90. Kids have to learn that they don't say e.g. "seventy-zero."

Category 4: Teen numbers, the numbers 10-19. This is a minefield for little kids.

I feel like the most effective and fastest procedure for teaching kids to read two-digit numbers, would be to teach category 1 to mastery, then category 2 to mastery, then category 3 to mastery, then category 4 to mastery. But this isn't always expedient because usually kids are using the teens numbers to count before they are reading and writing numerals.

Here are two exercises for introducing category 4, that I learned from "Connecting Math Concepts":

Quote

a. Write on a sheet of paper, in pencil: 7   4   9   6

Have the kid read them: point at 7 and say "what number?", point at 4 and say "what number?" ...

b. Say "I'm going to change these numbers into teens numbers.

Point to 7 again, and say "What's this number?" After kid answers "seven," change it into a 17:

17   4   9   6

Say "Now it's not 7; its 17."

c. Erase the 1 or cover it up to show

7   4   9   6

Say "What is it now?" When the kid answers "seven", change it into a 17 again:

17   4   9   6

d. Say "What is it now?" and wait for the kid to answer "seventeen." If she doesn't answer 17, say "No, now it's seventeen" and go back to step c.

e. Point to the 4. "What's this number?" After the kid says 4, change it into a 14:

17   14   9   6

Say "What number is it now?" Hopefully the kid answers "fourteen".

f. Repeat step e with the 9 and the 6.

g. Now your paper says

17 14 19 16

Say "My turn to read these numbers." Touch each number and say "Seventeen, fourteen, nineteen, sixteen." Then say "Your turn to read these numbers" and see if the kid can do it.

After this, or the next day, give the kid a simple worksheet with 1-digit numbers on them:

_6      _7       _8      _9

and tell the kid to turn them into teen numberes. She should write a "1" in each blank space.

Another one:

Quote

Write on a sheet of paper:    9      6      8      5      4

Have the kid read them: point at the 9 and say "what number?", point at the 6 and say "what number?" ...

Say "I'm going to change these numbers into teen numbers."

Point to 9. "What teen number can I change 9 into?" She should answer "nineteen." Point to 6. "What teen number can I change 6 into?" She should answer "sixteen." Repeat for 8, 5, and 4.

Point to 9 again. "What do I write in from of the 9 to make it 19?" Kid should answer "one." Then say "Tell me if I write one the right way." and change the 9 to 91:

91      6      8      5      4

Ask "is that the right way?" Kid should answer no. Say "The 1 is not in front of the 9."

Change it to show nineteen:

19      6      8      5      4

"Is that the right way?" Kid should answer yes. "What number did I write?" Kid should answer "nineteen."

Repeat with 6. Write 61 first, ask the kid if you wrote it the right way, then change it to 16, ask "What number did I write?"

For 8, do not change 8 to 81. Start directly with 18. "Did I write it the right way?" If kid answers "no" tell her she's wrong. You did write it the right way, the one is in front of the 8. "What number did I write?" Kid should answer eightteen.

For 5, again do not change 5 to 51.

For 4, go back to writing it the wrong way first. 

By now your paper should have

19     16      18     15     14

written on it. Close the exercise by having the kid read "all these teen numbers."

If that's easy for her, try introducing 13 the next day, 11 and 12 the day after, and 10 the day after.

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Kela said:

She can't seem to tell the difference between 12 and 21, 13 or 30. I'm having her do Christian Light because she can't go any further in MUS until she gets her numbers straightened out. 

I'd take getting saying the number correctly out of the equation. I'd make sure if you show her the number 13 she can get you 13 things. If you show her the number 31 or 30 she can get you 30 or 31 things. Mathematically that's more important than being able to tell you in English something is thirteen or thirty-one. This might be controversial but I'd be OK if my children just say 1 ten and 3 or 3 tens and 1. 

3 hours ago, Kela said:

My oldest is on lesson 14 in Alpha. She has been doing fantastic. Learning her facts easily and acing her tests. Just this week, though, she has been falling apart over math. She is learning "doubles plus one" facts. So, for example, 3 + 4 and 5 + 6, etc. She seems to be getting mixed up with the tricks and rules and it has been tears every day.

The tricks are there to help. If they aren't helping then I don't mention the trick again, just practice problems enough so they get fast at getting to the answer. 

If my children start crying or being really frustrated in math I switch what I'm doing for math for a while. Because of the math curriculum my son prefers (it does cause frustration occasionally) I have a standby math curriculum. I just work out of the standby math for a while. For us I ask him which math he wants to do, so he'll usually jump ship for 1-2 weeks. I find if he is solid on the math concepts he won't forget the concepts. It does clear his mind of the confusion. He usually comes right back in and goes "I know how to do this" sometimes this means he has figured out a trick that he just needs to ignore exists.

[HomeAgain]

My youngest did really well with using the MUS blocks in more of a Montessori manner.  I took colored index cards, matched to MUS green units, blue tens, and red hundreds.  I used them to make layered place value cards and we practiced making numbers in order: 1, 2, 3.....all the way up to 10.  Then we made "10 and 1", "10 and 2", "10 and 3"...

Each card had the right number of green (and blue, and eventually red) blocks placed directly under the corresponding digit in the place value card.  Whenever we saw a new number, he'd build it first with the cards.

As your kid is still pretty young, I'd suggest it's also a matter of still not being fully aware that direction matters (you might be finding this in reading, too).

 

Doubles + 1 : seriously, skip the thinking about it being 5+6 or 3+4.  Have her build each number, first putting down the lowest number block for each.  Ex, the first would be 5 +5.  THEN add the extra green unit to the one block that needs more.  Every, single time.  The goal is to visualize the break, so until that happens, you have to make the break in the number yourself.

You might like poking around EducationUnboxed.  The videos often use c-rods, but MUS ones are easily subsitituted.

[KSera]

5 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

 

My youngest did really well with using the MUS blocks in more of a Montessori manner.  I took colored index cards, matched to MUS green units, blue tens, and red hundreds.  I used them to make layered place value cards and we practiced making numbers in order: 1, 2, 3.....all the way up to 10.  Then we made "10 and 1", "10 and 2", "10 and 3"...

Each card had the right number of green (and blue, and eventually red) blocks placed directly under the corresponding digit in the place value card.  Whenever we saw a new number, he'd build it first with the cards.

 

Do you happen to have a picture of this. I can’t picture how the cards are set up, but it sounds like a good method. 

[HomeAgain]

4 minutes ago, KSera said:

Do you happen to have a picture of this. I can’t picture how the cards are set up, but it sounds like a good method. 

I apologize if these pictures are huge, but I found 3 from that year:

My first idea (white cards, MUS blocks building)

Making the place value cards

Place value play before returning to the first idea of continual building

 

[HomeAgain]

Oh, and because my printer sucked I used a dollar store stencil and crayons to draw the numbers.

[KSera]

@HomeAgain Thank you! I like that idea a lot. I recall building numbers with cards long ago—RightStart maybe? But they didn’t use the colors. We’re not using MUS, but we have the blocks and use them sometimes and the colors might be helpful with my current kindergartner. We have done similar with a small dry erase board and red, blue, green pens—I write the number and they build it or I build the number and they write it. 

[Clarita]

You can also look up place value cards for Montessori. It's the same principle and there are free printables of the number cards (don't need to buy the wooden placards unless you are a school).

[Rosie_0801]

The minicomputer lessons from CSMP did wonders for my dd's sense of place value.
(Minicomputers are made of paper, nothing fancy.)
((Google "SMP Materials" and it should come up.))

[HomeAgain]

2 hours ago, KSera said:

@HomeAgain Thank you! I like that idea a lot. I recall building numbers with cards long ago—RightStart maybe? But they didn’t use the colors. We’re not using MUS, but we have the blocks and use them sometimes and the colors might be helpful with my current kindergartner. We have done similar with a small dry erase board and red, blue, green pens—I write the number and they build it or I build the number and they write it. 

I use a LOT of colored pens with my older kids.  And colored graph paper for them, too, when they're learning to regroup beyond simple addition/subtraction. I had my living room set up sort of with stations when this kid was young, so having something he could do on his own, without assistance or a lot of instruction, was key to getting him to love something. 

We did end up with Right Start for a bit....and their plastic cards never got touched. 😄 They're quite sturdy and nice, though!

[Clarita]

24 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

I use a LOT of colored pens with my older kids.  And colored graph paper for them, too, when they're learning to regroup beyond simple addition/subtraction. I had my living room set up sort of with stations when this kid was young, so having something he could do on his own, without assistance or a lot of instruction, was key to getting him to love something. 

I need more on this colored graph paper idea. I'm not picturing it.

FWIW I like @HomeAgain's colored place value blocks more than the Montessori beads (both golden and the other color ones). Maybe no one needs to hear this but I wish I heard it before I bought a set. (The bead sets are expensive and rolls around too much.)

[AnneGG]

Number Blocks episodes. It’s basically animated MUS blocks singing & dancing  around. 

[HomeAgain]

15 hours ago, Clarita said:

I need more on this colored graph paper idea. I'm not picturing it.

 

Oh, I made my older kids graph paper in Excel.  For beginning multiplication it was a lifesaver for my oldest.  There are 6 columns of pink, blue, green, pink, blue, green, with a white column between.  This lets them set up problems and remember the place value of each that they're working with so that there are no tricks like "add a zero".  I have another that goes 6 columns: pink, blue, green, very light blue, very light pink, very light green with a darker border - for decimal value work.

I modeled them off the Montessori checkerboard.  We have one of those I painted on an old pillowcase (modified for MUS colors), but it's really only good for short time work.  The graph paper is a slightly longer transition to regular paper - about 6 weeks.