Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: abacus, math, Place value, Right-brained, RightStart

This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by 5heartsathome.

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

Author
Posts
May 4, 2015 at 1:32 pm
pangit
Participant
We need help on place value!! My DD, 11, is working in MUS. We are on Delta lesson 15. It has become obvious that the previous lessons on place value are not totally mastered. She is right-brained, if that helps with any suggestions. She seems to learn something and so we move on just to find out later that we hadn’t really mastered it. I feel like this happens every year and that we really are not making any progress. She gets angry about using the blocks, today she was supposed to write a number that was given to her in words (60,000,006). She didn’t do it correctly, so I wrote lines for each place value to be filled in (_ _,_ _ _,_ _ _). That apparently was a “death sentence” to ask her to use that and put the numbers in their proper places. Before I used the lines, she wanted to write 6 million instead of 60 million. She had 6 hundred instead of 6. And, I don’t have millions, billions or trillions of blocks to build the numbers with. If I write a number and have her read it, she can read it to me. If I write a number and ask her to tell me what’s in the “millions” place, etc., she can do that. If I write a number and ask her what place the “5”, etc. is in, she can do that.
In the previous lesson, we were supposed to take a number (ex:65,470,123) and write it in place value notation (ex:60,000,000+5,000,000+400,000+70,000+100+20+3). This took several lessons of balking and not getting it and then suddenly she was doing it. Now, the current lesson we are supposed to break it apart even further (6×10,000,000+5×1,000,000+4×100,000+7×10,000+1×100+2×10+3×1). Today is our third lesson and it is the first time she has done that properly but when asked to make the number is still not putting things in their proper place value.
This isn’t a new concept. We’ve done this in previous books and I don’t remember it causing so much trouble in the past. Does she really not get place value? Does it have more to do with reading the word? Where can I get more place value practice? I really don’t know what to do!! Ideas? Help? Thanks
May 5, 2015 at 8:29 am
retrofam
Participant
Child1st.com has a place value book. I am not sure what else to suggest. I have a dd10 that struggles with math, and I tried many different curriculum. I decided to stick with the one I like best, because she needs me to sit with her and provide reminders on how to do the problems. Math Lessons for a Living Education is my pick. We will use Math U See for highschool.
Hth!
May 5, 2015 at 9:14 am
5heartsathome
Participant
I have a right-brained daughter as well. I recommend the Rightstart Mathematics AL Abacus Standard, the Math Card Games book, and the Place Value Cards. We have had success with this program. It’s never to late to change over to Rightstart completely if MUS isn’t working. That is what we experienced and now we just love RS. 🙂
Place value is foundational to math so it is important to go back and master the concept. Make sure she isn’t reading right to left, also.
There is an amazing book called The Right Side of Normal by Cindy Gaddis that helps us left-brainers understand our wonderful children better. I highly recommend it. She has a website as well. Hope that helps! Mollie
May 8, 2015 at 9:12 am
5heartsathome
Participant
I had one more thought about this place value discussion and the use of Rightstart Mathematics…
It uses the transparent Asian way to name numbers (the “math names”). For example eleven is called “one ten one”, fifteen is “one ten five”, twenty-seven is called “two ten seven”, and so on. The place value is learned first and then the regular names are learned much later. It has been instrumental in my right brained daughter’s learning of this concept.
Go here and click on the very first video:
http://rightstartmath.com/resources/how-to-videos