AngieW in Texas
11-02-2009, 06:44 PM
I love Singapore, but it only seems to work for my youngest for 1-2 years at a time.
She did great with Singapore 1A-2B, but struggled through 3A. We tried other programs for a full year after 3A, but then returned to Singapore at my dd's request. She did great starting back with Singapore 4A all the way through 5A, but started struggling in 5B. We're just a few pages away from the end of 5B, but we need to stop again. It just isn't working now.
I've decided to try something completely different with her for now. Part of the problem has been that she needs to keep reviewing everything or she forgets it. She has a much harder time learning something the 2nd time around. Then the 3rd time around is even harder.
So I've set up a schedule for her to work through 5 different books, one for each weekday.
Monday - 5 minutes in Key to Fractions, 25 minutes in Key to Percents
Tuesday - 5 minutes in Key to Decimals, 25 minutes in Key to Algebra
Wednesday - 5 minutes in Key to Percents, 25 minutes in Kay to Fractions
Thursday - 5 minutes in Key to Algebra, 25 minutes in Key to Decimals
Friday - 5 minutes in book of her choice, 25 minutes in Lial's Basic College Mathematics.
I had already started her working in Key to Fractions, Decimals, and Percents. She was only doing Singapore on Tu/Th and was working in the other books on M/W/F. Our new schedule will have her working on each topic at least 2x/week (only once as her main focus though). BCM on Fridays will ensure that she also works on other topics. It starts at the beginning with a review of basic math operations.
I plan to let her write in the BCM book that I bought used. You can get copies of the book on amazon for as little as $3 (+$4 shipping), so it's not like I'm throwing out an expensive book. There's actually plenty of room to do the work for most problems right there on the page. I know my dd will do better if she can write in the book than she will if she has to do the work on a separate sheet.
Hopefully this will work for the rest of 6th grade and all of 7th. It may take her through 8th grade also. There are only 4 books each in fractions, decimals, and percents, but it will still take her awhile to get through them since she'll be working in each book just 30minutes/week. Once she has finished one of the Key to series, I'll have her start doing BCM on that day in addition to Fridays. I'll replace the next series she finishes with another day of Key to Algebra. In the end, she should be doing BCM 3 days/week and Key to Algebra 2 days/week. I'll just have to play it by ear to see if this will work or not.
She did great with Singapore 1A-2B, but struggled through 3A. We tried other programs for a full year after 3A, but then returned to Singapore at my dd's request. She did great starting back with Singapore 4A all the way through 5A, but started struggling in 5B. We're just a few pages away from the end of 5B, but we need to stop again. It just isn't working now.
I've decided to try something completely different with her for now. Part of the problem has been that she needs to keep reviewing everything or she forgets it. She has a much harder time learning something the 2nd time around. Then the 3rd time around is even harder.
So I've set up a schedule for her to work through 5 different books, one for each weekday.
Monday - 5 minutes in Key to Fractions, 25 minutes in Key to Percents
Tuesday - 5 minutes in Key to Decimals, 25 minutes in Key to Algebra
Wednesday - 5 minutes in Key to Percents, 25 minutes in Kay to Fractions
Thursday - 5 minutes in Key to Algebra, 25 minutes in Key to Decimals
Friday - 5 minutes in book of her choice, 25 minutes in Lial's Basic College Mathematics.
I had already started her working in Key to Fractions, Decimals, and Percents. She was only doing Singapore on Tu/Th and was working in the other books on M/W/F. Our new schedule will have her working on each topic at least 2x/week (only once as her main focus though). BCM on Fridays will ensure that she also works on other topics. It starts at the beginning with a review of basic math operations.
I plan to let her write in the BCM book that I bought used. You can get copies of the book on amazon for as little as $3 (+$4 shipping), so it's not like I'm throwing out an expensive book. There's actually plenty of room to do the work for most problems right there on the page. I know my dd will do better if she can write in the book than she will if she has to do the work on a separate sheet.
Hopefully this will work for the rest of 6th grade and all of 7th. It may take her through 8th grade also. There are only 4 books each in fractions, decimals, and percents, but it will still take her awhile to get through them since she'll be working in each book just 30minutes/week. Once she has finished one of the Key to series, I'll have her start doing BCM on that day in addition to Fridays. I'll replace the next series she finishes with another day of Key to Algebra. In the end, she should be doing BCM 3 days/week and Key to Algebra 2 days/week. I'll just have to play it by ear to see if this will work or not.