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Changing Math curriculum/Filling the gaps
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My ds(10) is having some struggles with Math. We have changed curriculum twice and ended his last year usuing Math Mammoth for Multiplication. I like the style of MM and I think it will suit my ds. But… when I gave him the placement test, it appears he has some gaps… things we haven’t covered, or not covered in much detail yet. I was thinking he would be almost ready for the Grade 4 set but he struggled with some things on the End of Grade 2 test and only covered about half of the Grade 3 test.
So… if we switch over to MM, would you recommend spending some time (the first month/term/or whatever) to fill in the gaps before moving on? or Just start a grade level lower (ie. Grade 3) and move faster through the areas he knows but slowing down on the areas he still struggles with or hasn’t covered at all yet?
My next concern is…. If we go with the Grade 3 level, my ds will be on the same level as dd(8). Do any of you combine your children for Math? Does this affect the self-asteem of the older one? Any insight would be much appreciated.
Blessings, Michelle
Well, I don’t know what you should do, but I wanted to jump in and say that one thing I love about Math Mammoth is how you can buy the units individually (so inexpensive, too!). So if you wanted you could work on the things he needs focus on, then move on to the next appropriate grade level.
I basically did this last year with my 5th grader who needed to relearn a lot of 4th grade math – then I chose to work on fractions for the rest of the year, as it seemed that was a big focus for 5th grade. Now this year we are starting the full 6th grade curriculum (Math Mammoth). Don’t know how it will work out, but that is the plan.
I would love to have my kids together for math – you will have to be the judge of whether or not your kids would balk at that or work together happily. Although you would prob have to split them up eventually – soon enough it will be time to get through algebra etc in time to do the needed math before graduation. Yikes it gives me stress to think long term LOL.
Gem — I am looking aty using Math Mammoth for my children. My 7 year-old had a perfect score for the end of year test for grade one, even though he hadn’t spent much time on some of the lessons such as measurement and clocks in PS, so I am very confident using the grade 2 curriculum as is. Unfortunately, my older son who is technically going into 5th grade (who had A’s for most of his math in PS) couldn’t even understand how to fill in the times table in the grade 3 end of year test because he’d never even seen one before! I am really struggling with how to approach this — Part of me thinks do the entire grade 3 year, but then again, maybe I should be looking at doing the multiplication and division in the Blue series instead — it would probably be less of a blow to his self-esteem. I’d like to get him caught up as much as possible to be on grade level in a year or two. In your opinion, aside from fractions, decimals, multiplication and division, what will he need to move into the grade 6 curriculum the following year?
4myboys, if it were me, that’s what I would do — use the Blue series to bring your ds up to speed and then plug him into to the grade level text when he is ready. Confidence is so important when it comes to math. I understand why you would be concerned about grade level distinctions being a discouragement to him.
As far as exactly what he would need to bring him up to 6th grade speed, I think if you email Maria Miller (the author) she would probably be willing to help you figure it out. She does say on the website that it is possible to do it the way you proposed.
Or you could perhaps just follow the table of contents for grade 5.
That’s what I was going to suggest, use Light Blue but fill in with topics from Blue. I have heard from at least one other person that Maria Miller is very helpful via email. I signed up (on MM website) for one of their virtual tours where you get 300 free extra worksheets and she emails you 5 or 6 times with information that discusses the various curriculum materials. (You can always ‘unsubscribe’ after you’ve read the tour emails if you don’t want her newsletter on a regular basis.)
I am soooo hoping that this curriculum will work out well for my son. He is 12 and autistic, and he struggles with remembering a lot of math concepts and facts.
I also agree; use the individual series to strengthen the weak areas, then move on after that. I like MM (though I’m going to add-in the new LoF Apples this year to further encourage and teach my dd; story format works so well with her).
MM has been good for her due to the repetition and mastery. I’ve used the money (dd), measurement (ds)and addition/subtraction (dd) supplements.
Rachel
I think it would, for me, depend on his gaps. Now, you’ll have to understand this is the first year in 3 or 4 that we’ve used a math text of any kind. My son was showing great signs of hating math so we stopped using all math texts and played games, read books, and applied what we knew/learned. He’s now above grade level in some areas and on grade level at other areas, to be sure we had no gaps I opted to use a math text this term. I do not know if I will continue with that next year or not.
Personally, I’m not keen on MM, for a lot of reasons. The biggest being that unless you use her grade level specific stuff you you’ll need to chose your own order to work in. I do own a lot of MM products because when we did math without texts I used some of the worksheets from MM on their own. However, unless you work consecutively through it I found her method with some things was a bit more iffy.
You might find that a product like Teaching Text books is good to fill gaps. There’s a lot of reasons for that. One, they are considered “behind”. I don’t know if I totally agree with that. I think it would depend on what you are comparing it to kinda thing. Anyway.. they do move slowly which is nice. You would, however need to practice facts seperately {i think} in order to really get mastery of them down.
You could easy peasy get away with backing him up one grade and finding him at perhaps the level you think he needs to be without having him feel/see he’s at the same grade as a sibling. You could also put him at his grade level in TT and supposedly be one grade level behind. Then you could easily fill those gaps you’ve noticed on your own with games and other resources.
I like to concentrate on ONE math concept at a time. We know it inside-outside-upside down kinda thign before we move on. This means my kids know a LOT above their grade level and some on their grade level and they might even be a smidge behind. One reason I opted for a text this year was to be sure there were no gaps. Thus far we’ve not noticed any at all so we’ve bumped around the lessons.
Another thing about TT is that they have FEWER lessons, by a lot, then most math texts. This gives you the ability to not feel like you need to “hurry up” and you could still get away with doing math only 3x a week and doing living math style lessons 2x a week. 😀
I only very briefly considered Teaching Textbooks on the recommendation of a homeschooling friend. I dismissed it quickly due to the cost. After speaking with my son I am fairly certain that he is comfortable doing the full grade three curriculum of MM. We may be able to breeze through certain sections fairly quickly, and that would be great. I think that there is enough here that he needs to review for the sake of mastery to hold his interest, but also give him the confidence he needs to progress. I am afraid that following the blue series we would have gaps for sure. I think I am going to order the grades 2, 3, and 4. If he breezes through the grade 3 and is ready to move on to the grade 4, then that’s fabulous, if not, I have them for next year. I do have math games on my weekly schedule and a list of other activities that I plan to do with the boys to encourage using their skills in real life.
One question about the currency sheets: When you order the down loadable version, does it come with all the sheets for the different currencies? Or do I have to order the Canadian sheets seperate?
Thanks!
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