Hello ladies! I haven’t been on the forum much these past 6 months……we moved, jumped into homeschooling more intensely, holidays, etc., etc. :o) I found this forum so helpful last spring and summer and I would attribute a lot of our success in homeschooling to all of you!
Although I am happy with almost everything I picked out for us book/curriculum wise I am really struggling in one area….MATH….
I bought RS and although I still appreciate it’s approach and we do enjoy the games and lessons (when we get to them :o( ) I am really struggling with two aspects.
1. The time it takes me to prep for each lesson. The way they teach math is so different from how I was taught I feel like I have to Pre-read and digest each lesson before sitting down with the kids or else we end up with dead time during the lesson as I read and try to comprehend the purpose of the next activity in order to explain it properly. Then there is gathering the supplies and having everything laid out, cut out and prepped. I need our school activities to have a bit more simplicity and flow to them. I know that all in all the prep and lesson don’t actually take all that much time but for some reason everything else in our day seems to go smoothly and I just can’t seem to get the math to feel like a natural part of our learning.
2. I had heard that RS prefers that students not begin the program with much math “baggage” as in traditional math systems already in there minds and then also CM talks about “things before symbols” so although both of my daughters could do some basic verbal counting I hadn’t taught them to write or recognize numbers. I feel like in the program we are a bit scattered……one day we are working on lining up and recognizing number cards but then for days all we do is abbicus work or cotter triangles with no basic number/counting work.
I find that for the sake of keeping the lessons down to 15-20 min I almost always have to split each lesson into 2 days which I’m fine with except we are now only on about lesson 20 which makes the gaps between concepts seem even grater.
So…..help? :o)
Is this just not going to be a good fit for us? I do understand that this whole approach to math is non-traditional but I feel discouraged. I bought some basic Kumon math workbooks at Barnes&Noble this weekend (admittedly very twaddly) and was surprised to find that my just turned 7 year old was struggling with the 4-5-6 year old book I bought.
One additional factor is that a 12 year old girl is going to be coming in 1 hour a day to help tutor some of the individual lessons (math/phonics/copywork) so I can just focus on our whole family learning times (bible/history/literature/etc) and on doing play/preschool activities with my little guys. She is used to traditional math so I either have to keep the math myself or find a program that she can easily follow the teachers manual. She is a bright girl but if I struggle to teach RS I don’t think it is fair to expect her to do it :o)
Trying to decide if to switch to a more traditional program and just supplement with some occasional games? What programs have you all used that require very little teacher prep?
(and yes, I do struggle with bad-mother-guilt for even asking these questions, I know RS is supposed to be one of the best and I saved for quite a while to even purchase the program. I’m just trying to give an honest assessment, the fact is as much as I want it to work it just isn’t getting done.)
Welcome back, Ladyofthehouse! I have wondered about you and how your history program is going. I understand about the moving since we did that a little over a year ago. (I still have a few unpacked boxes in the closet.) I am glad to see you back, and so sad that you are struggling with math. I’ve been there, too.
I am currently using RS math and am happy with the results. I encourage you to continue with it, getting a good system down for it. I say this because I have been through too many math books and have finally found my ds7 learning the math facts. I do agree that you have to use what works for your family. But maybe try using it differently with your time before you completely ditch it. I recommend that you keep the math games and an AL abacus, even if you switch lessons to another program.
We have been through Schoolzone workbooks for K, Saxon Math 1, Hooked on Math addition/subtraction, Math U See Alpha, and now RightStart Math level B. My ds7 is finally learning the math facts with the use of the AL Abacus and the RS games. We were liking MUS, but I found that my ds7 understood the AL Abacus better than he understood the MUS blocks. We were supplementing MUS with the RS games. I could teach him using the MUS blocks and ds7 did not understand to narrate. I would teach him the same concept using the AL Abacus and he could do that problem okay (narration). So I decided to switch to the RS lessons since he understands them better than MUS.
I like that RS includes more than just math facts and clock, which is all that MUS had. They are learning shapes and parallel/perpendicular, money, etc. and I like how gently they are taught. We do still have the MUS blocks and Songs CD. I prefer using the blocks to teach place value with our decimal street posterboard. But I use the RS place value cards with that. We listen to the Songs CD in the van once a week for skip counting. We will go back to MUS once we get through all of the RS lesson levels.
I think it depends on the child if they should switch or not. My dd5 has been tagging along with her older brother this whole time and she know a lot of math – very advanced for her age. I think she could use any math program and excel with it. But my ds7 struggles with math and I have to find what he understands and use that. I have to plan more time to teach him and play more math games with him. I have to go over the lesson again sometimes until he understands it. I don’t move on until he understands. So we might spend a few days on one lesson and the games. But I am glad to know that he is understanding it and finally learning his math facts!
I pray you make the right decision based on your child’s needs. But I do want to encourage you to keep going with RS a bit longer, but changing your schedule a little. I have to read the lesson the night before after the kids are in bed. It is quiet then and I can read right through fairly quickly and get any manipulatives out that I might need. Then I feel confident to teach it the next morning.
Sometimes we play the games later in the afternoon. Both kids play with me and I help my younger. They have so much fun that many times they ask to play another one. We do the lesson for 15-20 minutes and then play a math game for 15 minutes at a later time. If the lesson was shorter, we go ahead and play a math game then.
My suggestion for you is to read the math lesson the night before when it is quiet(or early in the AM if you are a morning person) and get out the manipulatives to be used. Have the 12 year old play the math games with them each afternoon as part of her tutoring. You can give her the kit and have her read the directions on how to play the game. She won’t have to read this every day since they will play the same games over and over (mixing them up) for months as review and part of learning the math facts.
I haven’t found that I’ve had to cut out very much cards, etc. There are matching cards, dot cards, squares and triangles. I looked ahead in the appendix and copied them on colored cardstock all at once and cut them out and put in sandwich bags so they are ready to go when we need them. There were only a few of these and they are used for multiple lessons. A little teacher prep all at once goes a long way for you each week.
What are you thinking of switching to? Are you thinking of using the KUMON books only? You could still play the RS math games with other programs. What sold me on the RS was the AL abacus; not just any abacus. I love how it works in groups of fives and tens, just like the fingers and toes that G-d gave us. But it did take a while for my ds7 to stop counting the beads and *know* that 5 blue and 4 yellow is 9 total. Once they understand that, it is much easier. We played those matching games for months to learn this. Whereas MUS works at learning by addend (+1, +2, +9, +8, doubles, etc.) RS works more by sum (=10, =5, then +1, +2, etc.) because of the base 10 system we have. My ds7 is very visual and can picture the AL abacus in his mind.
Sorry to go on and on so much. I do hope you find what works for your dc and you are not a bad mommy for switching to find what works. Look how many math programs we’ve gone through before finding the right one for us. 🙂 PM me if you have any more questions. I am happy to help.
My daughter also started with a traditional program before switiching to RS. We really struggled last year with book C. I tried to do so much at one sitting to cram in a lesson a day. This was one of my mistakes. After much vacilation over whether to continue, I decided to try another year, but go more at her pace. I now give her a bit of independent work at the beginning (like having her do some of the warm up herself.) I also suppliment some Rays story problems at the beginning of the lesson (just 2 or 3.) Now that I have broken up the lessons, and I’m not in much of a hurry, things are going wonderfully. In fact, math is now her favorite subject. I am also amazed at her ability to do mental math. She blows ME away!!!
Thanks ladies for the responses! ( There was an additional one last night….where did it go….?) You all are reminding me why I so appreciated this forum in the first place :o)
I would also encourage you to continue, finding a system that works for you. We are also RS users and are on Level B with my 7yo son. I watch in amazement as he can add multiples of 5 in his head up to past 100. This could never have happened, I believe, with a more traditional approach. I’m sure you’ve read that RS teaches math for understanding, so it goes a little slower, and in the short-term cannot compare to other math books. But as you progress through the levels it becomes clearer just how brilliant Dr Cotter is, in designing this program, all the strategies she teaches etc., the way everything comes together to enable these kids to really ‘get’ math and do it in their heads. We’ve just been through lessons teaching the “9’s” trick. ie. for eg. 57 + 9. Take 1 from 7, add it to the 9 and you have 56 + 10 = 66. It wasn’t long before my son could do this easily in his head because he practiced using the abacus and then could transfer the picture of the abacus into his head. Heck, I couldn’t even do that in my head in Gr 4, I’m sure, I sure wish someone had taught me all these tricks 🙂 I would’ve done it on my fingers. He doesn’t get all the stategies so quickly but Dr Cotter has said on the RS forum more than once to let them use the abacus for as long as they need it to be able to visualise numbers in their heads.
Do you belong to the RS yahoo group? I would really advise you to join the group and post your original note to it. There are so many very experienced RS moms who can give so many pearls of wisdom. RightStart@yahoogroups.com I’m really sure you will find others who are having the same struggles as you.
Rebekah – from what I’ve read, Level C is a difficult one and mostly takes 1,5yrs or so to get through….
Apologies for getting on my soapbox, but I am just SO impressed with this program, I really want you to hear the other side before you switch to something else
I also think it might be worth trying to push through RS – take things slowly and don’t worry about the Level you wish you were at. Playing games is key (which I suspect we don’t do enough of).
Level B can take more than a year… Level C is considered the level that takes the longest, with a year and a half being common, and 2 years happening for some students…. but they also say that it really sets a strong foundation.
btw – we do math for 30 minutes a day with my 8 and 6yo (who are at the same level). I set a timer. We generally get through the lesson in that time – if not we continue it the next day…. if we finish the lesson before the 30 minutes are over, we play a math game for the rest of the time. My kids always want to do math first…..
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