I am happy to report that after purchasing the math practice program at IXL.com and having the children do additional math work every night for 30 minutes, they all aced their mental math test. I had IXL.com last year, let it expire, and realized that was a terrible mistake and renewed it this week.
Sarah and Gregory's teacher has a whole tutoring program that she does after school and parents pay her out of their own pockets. I get that now. I thought it was weird that all these parents were signing their very smart kids up for tutoring.
The math curriculum they use is a spiraling curriculum, so they only barely touch on a subject, then the next week they spiral off into a completely different topic. These parents have probably come to the same conclusion I have that their children need to gain mastery over the subject they were supposed to learn and are paying for it. Imagine that? Actually learning the subject you were introduced to!!!
This week they are doing patterns which has nothing to do with double digit addition. If the children didn't master the double digit mental math topic, oh well, it's patterns this week. They'll have their chance to learn that one again NEXT YEAR!
It pains me to force the kids inside to do even more work after they've been at school all day. It's been in the high 60s and low 70s.
When I went to get them one day this week, they were in Hawai'i. They had skinned part of my palm tree and whittled the skin into knives and their scooters and their bikes were water boats and the concrete was water. Austin was in charge of finding meat. Amanda was married and had all her dolls in her water boat.
I am seriously not kidding when I say it literally PAINED ME to make them come in and do their homework and the additional math work. The kids need to play after school. I think even having more than one organized activity in a week is just too much. They just need to play and unwind and use their imaginations. They need down time.
But we swam through the concrete water from Hawai'i to Nevada and did our math anyway. I can see their childhood slipping away before my eyes and it makes me sad.
18 comments:
I'm a math type and just out of curiousity a friend once gave me the spiraling version of calculus. oh, dear god. I think the name might be Wang or something like that, but if you see that in a few years, run like hell.
There is value in understanding spatial relationships in numbers, but they definitely need to know operations as well. I need to look at ixl.com now that my oldest is heading towards five and is a math fan.
This investment will really pay them in long run :)
Warmest regards,
Ruby
If you gave in and home schooled they would have many more hours to play. You may not be sane anymore, but your kids would have a childhood.
OMG. Can I borrow that? (the cartoon) That is EXACTLY what I think of the public schools. And we're not in a bad one. I've got two high schoolers, and they are both in all honors classes, and they still complain about the number of students who don't do the work and don't care. Honors classes today are what regular classes used to be. Regular classes are practically remedial. But as long as everyone gets good grades, people think their kids are getting a good education.
Tracy- yeah, go ahead and take it. I downloaded it from the website on the cartoon. You can also download all their cartoons in a screensaver.
That's what happens here, too. The kids all get good grades and then they take the high school proficiency test, which is based on eighth grade math, and 60 percent of them fail and the parents are like, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND. THEY GOT GOOD GRADES THE WHOLE TIME!"
I am DREADING elementary school. How does Austin do? Is he better prepared since he has the triplets one year ahead of him? My hope is that Luke will instantly know all of the concepts because he will have watched me drill the triplets in the same things the year before!
Austin is Rainman smart. I've never seen less than a perfect paper. He's already learned this with them.
I hate spiralling curriculums. I cannot wait for "research" to prove it wrong so that we can get past it! I mean, kids do need to spiral review, and there is benefit in moving past some things so that kids who don't get it don't get totally turned off and can move onto a topic they like, but that's enough.
I went to Israel for three weeks in my Junior year and missed logarithms in math class. Up to that point, I thought I was going to be a math teacher. When i came back, the class had moved on to trigonometry and I didn't need to know logarithms. The next year, I took Calculus and ended up getting 13/120 on my first semester final (can you tell it scarred me? I remember the score 21 years later) - BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW LOGARITHMS! grrr.
This is a little off-topic, but I was thinking of you this morning when I saw the news about the norovirus on the cruise ships. Now you'll have to bring your own lifeboat AND 50 gallons of hand sanitizer. ;)
-Loretta
we do that math program. i have never paid for it! I Just got a username and password from the school. Does this mean they pat for it!?!?! How much is it?
kim NC
A few days ago you were posting about math curriculums and I went on a local mom message board to learn what ours was. The next day one of the kindergarten teachers actually sent home a math curriculm book to keep at home for review. Then you posed about Jump Rope for Heart and I agreed it was a fundraiser for a good cause. The next day my kids started bringing home pledge sheets for their Jump Rope for Heart. I'm slightly concerned about what you are going to post next, LOL!
We've got 20 degrees and blowing snow. No wonder I don't mind the math. :-/
Yay for the A's. Do they have accelerated math at your school for 3rd grade? I didn't want to ask you the other day because I was afraid your head really would explode.
Kelly- they have GATE, which they have to test into. (Gifted And Talented, as opposed to Stupid And Boring, I guess.) I am almost certain Sarah and Austin will test into GATE.
Kim- IXL is $199 for a classroom of 30 students. So, yes, your school it paying for it. Lucky Duck!
Wait... do you have my house bugged??? I was just having this conversation with my sister yesterday, explaining to her how irritated I am about the girls' spiraling curriculum.
It's just like a rock skipping across the water... lots of gaps and the rock barely gets wet.
Gifted program is separate. At our school, they test all of the 2nd graders in math and those that have mastered the math skills skip the 3rd grade math curriculum and go right to 4 the grade math. I didn't understand the spiral thing and freaked that they were skipping 3rd grade math. Then I found out 1/2 the kids do accelerated math and figured out the spiral, and why they can do that. If your school does the same thing, I'll be looking forward to that post. :-P
We had our school carnival last night. We also received 10" of snow. Ha. That was awesome to come out to where NOTHING was plowed. Anyway, I won not 1 but 2 Jr Schoolboard seats in the silent auction. What does this mean? It means that my 5 year old, and my (very reluctant) 7 year old will be sitting on the school board this month. Feb 27th I will be going to the school board meeting, meeting the board, shaking hands, and taking photos of my kids with them. Heh. When I told the Principal I swear all the color drained out of her face. Anyway, I will post about that, I hope my son doesn't fall asleep during the board meeting. LOL!
I went back and looked to make sure I wasn't supposed to be sending in money! I found out the teacher pays for it out of her own pocket! she feel it is that good!
Kim
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