How do you implement chalkdust prealg?

[5Youngs]

Thanks to Pongo, I was able to buy the 'almost' chalkdust prealgebra materials on amazon. My 12yo son was on lesson 1.3, which meant that his dvd lesson today was an hour, and he had 186 problems to do. How do others implement this? I've had him do evens only, but he still spends 2+ hours a day on math. I'm not sure that this is the best use of his time. And if it helps, math is a breeze for him. I can't get him to break it up into two lessons. He refuses to stop until he's finished the entire set of problems! I WANT this program to work for us, but I don't want to wear him out.

Any input is greatly appreciated~

[Wildiris]

It is recommended that a student complete 30-35 problems from a problem set following each lesson, including selecting problems from the word problem section. The extra problems can be used to help students if they run into trouble and need more practice.

[5Youngs]

Do you stagger the chosen problems or just do 1-35 and choose a word problem?

[Kim in SouthGa]

I was also able to get the "almost" Chalkdust PreAlgebra for my just turned 13 (yesterday) son. 1.3 was a BEAR!! He stuck with it and watched the whole thing in one sitting even though I told him he could split it up. We are on 2.3 and have not run into another on that long yet.

 

Do you have the TM? At the beginning of each problem section, it tells you the recommended problems to do. Usually, it is every other odd for most of them, some are the odds. This has been good for him and he is just spending about an hour on math. He was having trouble understanding negative numbers and missed quite a few on that section, so I made him go back and do the other every-other odds. I know I should probably make him do more, but we are coming off MUS, and he would just die if he had to do all of those problems! As long as he understands it, I am fine with every odd or even every other odd.

 

I did tell my son that as it gets harder, we can watch the dvd together at night after the toddler goes to bed. Then he can work the problems as soon as he gets up in the morning. He is an early riser and likes to get right to work. If only I could say the same for the rest of the family! :glare:

 

HTH,

[Wildiris]

I go random~A column or every other problem, every fourth problem. I also have DD do the "You try it" problems and based on her success I choose problems similar to the " You try it" problems.

[Denise in IN]

I was also able to get the "almost" Chalkdust PreAlgebra for my just turned 13 (yesterday) son. 1.3 was a BEAR!! He stuck with it and watched the whole thing in one sitting even though I told him he could split it up. We are on 2.3 and have not run into another on that long yet.

 

Do you have the TM? At the beginning of each problem section, it tells you the recommended problems to do. Usually, it is every other odd for most of them, some are the odds. This has been good for him and he is just spending about an hour on math. He was having trouble understanding negative numbers and missed quite a few on that section, so I made him go back and do the other every-other odds. I know I should probably make him do more, but we are coming off MUS, and he would just die if he had to do all of those problems! As long as he understands it, I am fine with every odd or even every other odd.

 

I did tell my son that as it gets harder, we can watch the dvd together at night after the toddler goes to bed. Then he can work the problems as soon as he gets up in the morning. He is an early riser and likes to get right to work. If only I could say the same for the rest of the family! :glare:

 

HTH,

 

Kim, can I ask which level of Math-U-See you stopped with? We also do MUS, and I'm planning to use CD Pre-Algebra, but not sure when it will be best to make the transition.

[Kim in SouthGa]

We stopped after Epsilon, but went through most of Mastering Essential Math Skills also. He was having a lot of trouble with fractions at one point, so we picked up Mastering and worked through it until he got past fractions. He is doing ok so far, but having a little trouble getting addition of negative/positive numbers. I'm probably going to go through that section in Mastering before we move on in Chalkdust (it is only a couple of pages). I really like Mastering for extra help (you can get it most anywhere, like Amazon or Rainbow).

[kangato3]

Chalkdust recommends spending an hour each day on math and working about 30 problems from each section. I use the total number of problems to figure out if she does every other, every third, etc. It has worked quite well. She is on her last chapter with 4 weeks of school left. Initially, working an hour a day, she breezed through the lessons pretty quickly. This left her plenty of cushion to take the time she needed on more difficult lessons later.

Louise

[Laura R (FL)]

I picked about 30 problems throughout the lesson, including word problems. It might be every other, every 4th, once it was every 7th. If she needed more practice, we did the same thing, but started with even instead of odd.

[tsuche]

I'd love to see it beacause that is what we will be on next year

Blessings,

Terry

 

 

 

Thanks to Pongo, I was able to buy the 'almost' chalkdust prealgebra materials on amazon. My 12yo son was on lesson 1.3, which meant that his dvd lesson today was an hour, and he had 186 problems to do. How do others implement this? I've had him do evens only, but he still spends 2+ hours a day on math. I'm not sure that this is the best use of his time. And if it helps, math is a breeze for him. I can't get him to break it up into two lessons. He refuses to stop until he's finished the entire set of problems! I WANT this program to work for us, but I don't want to wear him out.

Any input is greatly appreciated~

[PinkInTheBlue]

When I ordered mine from Chalkdust, it included a list that told how long every DVD session is. For the rare lesson that's nearly an hour long, that's all we do that day. The average lesson is more around 20 - 30 min. My 12yr old takes notes with the DVD and pauses to try and work the problems as he moves along.

 

Then with the lessons I divide the total number of problems by 15 to come up with how many he'll alternate to get about 15 problems. For instance, if there are 203 problems, I'll divide that by 15. That gives me 13.5. So he'll do every 13th problem. We check those when he finishes and if he doesn't miss more than one, we move on tomorrow. If he needs more practice we come back to it tomorrow. We've only had to come back to a lesson once or twice and we are halfway in the book.

 

Does that help?

 

I strongly agree that math shouldn't be more than one hour.

[Kim in SouthGa]

Terry,

These are the same books and dvds used by Chalkdust, just without the Chalkdust name (and customer support). Pongo posted the ISBN #s a while ago, and I was able to get the text, TM, solution manual, and dvd set for around $90, used. If you search "Chalkdust ISBN" it should come up.