yvonne Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 I've been doing math fact drills with my 8 yo boys for about 2 years now, if you count the very beginning stage of +0, +1, +2 flash cards. They seem to have their addition, subtraction, and all but 4 of their multiplication facts to 12 down cold. Because they've got the mult. facts down, they do very well with the division facts, though we still work on those. We've been doing R&S's flash cards and R&S's fact drill sheets orally four times a week pretty religiously. It only takes about 5 mins./child, so it's not a huge time sink & it's certainly been worth it. But now we're also doing one Horizons lesson and usually 1 Singapore wkbk/IP/CWP exercise/page a day, so they get practice there. Will we lose ground if I stop now? (Hm. Seems such a trivial question, and I could just try it, but, having gone to the trouble of doing this, I don't want to lose it! And I know some people don't do drill at all, but I've found it has been extremely helpful for us in freeing the kids up to focus on the newest concept in a math lesson & not get bogged down in the mechanics.) Thanks for any thoughts! yvonne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tree House Academy Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 We stopped as soon as he started doing long division and he was missing basically none. That told me he had his facts down. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inashoe Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 The next step is Mental Math, such as 17 + 9, or 2 x 16, etc. Do you have the Home Instructor Guides for Singapore ? If so, you will find lists of Mental Math problems in the back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Never. My guide in this is conference speaker Kathy Wentz. They continued math drill right up until college. However, she advocates (and I agree) doing your drill through games--that way it doesn't feel like drill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee in MI Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 I agree with Treehouse. The point of knowing math facts is to do the later operations without being slowed down by fact recall. Once my son was able to do long division comfortably, we stopped drill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KerriF Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Strider, Do you have any games you would recommend for mulitipication drill? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narrow Gate Academy Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 We haven't reached the stopping point yet with my 4th grader, but we are close. We just cut back to three days a week this week and will continue to try to cut back for the remainder of the year. I would say when you stop depends on the child. I would try cutting back to two days a week. If that goes well, after a few weeks try cutting back to once a week, then every other week, etc. until you cut it out completely. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee in MI Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 What we did: Through third grade: Calculadders. Fourth grade: Times Tables the Fun Way, then Math War. (Each put out a number card. If he could quickly call out the product, he got the cards. If not, I did.) Fifth grade: Every morning, first thing, he filled out a times table, then he could use it for math later in the day. When he didn't need a times table for math, he could stop filling them out in the morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Strider, Do you have any games you would recommend for mulitipication drill? Thanks Off the top of my head . . . --Multiplication War: Played like War, but each player lays two cards at a time and multiplies them. We do this one a lot. http://www.games.exuberanteye.com/index.html http://www.multiplication.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted January 7, 2009 Author Share Posted January 7, 2009 Thanks, everyone! Rebecca, that's what I'm finding, too, now that we've started long division---there's a lot of practice of math facts when they do long div. That's what was making me wonder if specific math drills were overkill at this point. Given that they're getting a lot of practice with the long division problems in _both_ Singapore and Horizons, I think I'll cut the flashcards/oral drill sheets back to 2x/week for a while. But, first, we'll do a timed run through the facts in each of the 4 operations so I have an objective baseline. Then we'll retest monthly. If the times go up, we'll go back to flashcards daily. Ah. It feels good to have a plan. I hate it when I churn and churn on something relatively trivial. Thanks, again, for your thoughts, everyone! yvonne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandarinmom Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 Math games 3 and 4 on http://www.helpme2learn.com. They have online subscriptions for 4 different courses $5.95/month. We are not ready for math games yet, but we have done all phonics including Phonics 3 reviews with great results before even started 1st grade. Highly recommend. What about http://www.bigmath.com and other associated with it sites? They have Math drill, it is not so much a game, but sure better than worksheets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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