Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: elementary arithmetic, Ray’s new arithmetic

This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 months, 1 week ago by Trumpet_6.

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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December 31, 2024 at 8:52 pm
Trumpet_6
Participant
I’m looking to change our math curriculum. I have been able to get a hold of Elementary Arithmetic books 1 and 2 and Ray’s new Primary Arithmetic. Book 1 does adding and subtracting from 1 to 100. And book 2 really focuses on adding and subtracting to 20 at the start. Ray’s arithmetic seems to focus on addition and subtraction to 20 as well for first grade according to the parent teacher guide. So I was wondering what the reasoning behind SCM elementary arithmetic book 1 was? I’m tempted to start at book 2 along with Ray’s according to the parent teacher guide. Thank you!
December 31, 2024 at 10:25 pm
Ruralmama
Participant
I’m not really sure but I think book 1s aim is to build a child’s number sense. As in 10 is 10 ones 100 is 10 tens….twenty 8s 2 tens…if you add thirty and seven it’s 37…..
Book to is when facts are memorized. You don’t want to have a child memorizing math facts that he or she doesn’t already understand well ….
I am not super familiar with SCM math, but that was the idea I got.
January 1, 2025 at 1:20 pm
Richele Baburina
Participant
Good question. You could do that, but you’d have to add in what Ray’s and Book 2 doesn’t have that’s in Mathematics: an Instrument for a Living Teaching…
Like Ruralmama said, Book 1 gives the child time to explore and make friends with numbers through 100, allows children time to gain ideas before memorizing facts (though +/- facts are often learned during Book 1 due to the mental math work). Even the number 1 has an idea attached to it and there are many other ideas a child receives in Book 1, perhaps one of the most important is the idea of place value.
For more information on why Book 1 is important, you might enjoy in particular The Life of the Math Lesson, which goes over more of the ideas found within.
Let me know if you have additional questions.
Richele
January 1, 2025 at 8:36 pm
Trumpet_6
Participant
Thank you both for the answers! That makes sense.