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Math help
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I’m planning next year’s school and I’m at a loss as to what to do for my eldest. He will be 11 and will have finished ACE’s 5th grade math. So, he’s doing fractions and decimals.
ACE requires about 3 pages a day to finish a year’s worth of work on time and it is just overwhelming for my son. Because he was a little ahead when we switched to ACE, we are taking it a little more slowly and it’s still overwhelming. We did MUS before ACE math.
I’m planning on using CLE math for everyone else. But I saw that a lesson for his level could be 5 pages. I’ve spent the evening looking at different math curriculla and I’m still at a loss.
I think that a lot of color could distract him and a clean looking page is better. I want him to have the discipline of math while not being so overwhelmed that he wants to give up. Ideas?
Can you break up the lesson? We try to stick to an age appropriate length for math lessons. At that age, my kids do around 30-40 minutes before we stop. Anything left over is finished later in the day (or continued the next day).
We just switched to CLE and their are many pages, but it is a variety of problems. Not sure how that compares to ACE. I don’t have level 5, but level 6 has 4 page lessons. Some of that is often instructive text or story problems that take up lots of space. Most lessons have around 20 probems. Some take more time like long division, but others are simple geometry problems or simple conversions (ft to yards).
Are you wanting something he can use independently? Or are you going to be working with him during that time each day? If you are going to work with him on CLE, I recommend the teacher’s guide and a white board to work on the problems he needs to do and skip those mastered. Pair this with CM methods for math like oral story problems. If you need independent math, you can get the CLE worktexts and cross out the problems he has mastered, or just have him work about half the review problems. The review section often has two or three similar problems. We do a mix of these two methods. Do what works best for your son. I can’t speak highly enough of the oral story problems and mental math we started incorporating into our math lessons since last year when I read Richele’s math book and watched her DVD on CM math methods. I am no longer asked why we have to do math. I have seen increased attention and audio memory as well.
https://simplycharlottemason.com/store/mathematics-book-and-dvd-bundle/
With this particular child, the problem with doing math for a certain length of time is that he gets distracted. I sat a timer on Friday and that seemed to help him stay on task.
This child also really likes attention so I try to give him independent work to break the habit of wanting all of me all the time. 🙂
It’s good to hear that others are doing CLE at those levels in 1/2 hour. I was afraid it would take him 2 hours.
I stay at the table with them to help keep them focused. I have 4 school aged DC, so I’m usually helping someone or grading workbooks as they finish. I would say 40 minutes or more is more typical for my older kids, but sometimes we stop sooner if they are frustrated or just happen to finish early. My younger ones are done in 20-30 minutes tops.
Have you seen Math Lessons for a Living Education? Level 6 states that lessons are designed to be approximately 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week, 36 weeks per year. There’s a story on the first day each week then problems to work that day and the following 4 days. I’m most likely putting both my girls in MLFLE and Beast Academy (to work more on conceptual understanding). The main reasons I like MLFLE are: my youngest gets distracted, gets overwhelmed by a large # of problems, & tends to comprehend well from stories, & my oldest needs to be able to work independently as much as possible and the curriculum appears to address those needs. I’m actually probably going to have my oldest work through Level 6 quickly (if she cooperates) then move to Principles of Mathematics (same company but different author) bc she’s almost 12yo/7th grade, and I think she’s almost ready but gets frustrated and meltdown if doesn’t instantly understand something…my thoughts are to start a little behind to build confidence & reduce conflict with me when she has a meltdown and gets mad when I try to explain. Mine both want me right there much of the time, get off task (older is mostly doing this by choice), & the oldest thinks she knows everything then proceeds to argue with me so the more hands off I can be with her the better (if I’m not sitting there watching her do it wrong, I can just address it after rather than a battle in the middle of it). I offer all that info in case the thought process I’ve used in looking for a curriculum and the needs we have can trigger any ideas for you with your son.
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