DianeJM
03-18-2008, 11:16 AM
This all started for me when I heard last week on NPR a glowing report of Singapore Math being used with great success in public schools in one county in California. That got me very interested in looking at it -- it seemed "fun" and kids absolutely loved it. (The thought did occur to me that I personally can make any fun thing deathly boring just by being me, so I know the teacher has a lot to do with how fun it is.)
Anyway, so I have been looking on the Singapore math site as well as others for information. I figure my son would be about 2B. On the Singapore site there is what looks like a new edition, the "Standards" edition, and it says that it's been adapted to conform to the standards of California public schools. That is not necessarily a selling point for me.
Does anyone know anything about this? If there is a thread elsewhere on this, please direct me.
My reason for looking is that my 3rd grade son has hit a wall with being motivated with school in general, but with math in particular. He is absolutely hating math. We have been using ABeka since the beginning. I think it's just that it's getting more complicated with the long division and having to memorize all these multiplication tables and all. So, I don't know if there would be anything that would make it more fun except the teacher -- me. We have had another year this year of many interruptions and distractions with school, many of which are out of my control. We are only on lesson 50-something (out of 170, even though I never get past about 150 b/c I don't think I need to), so we are pretty far behind. We used to have fun with math, I made it an active experience for him, but now there's just so much pencil and paper, and that gets him down. I still try to include activity, but it's getting harder to do. There are many days I don't even get to math, and some days we don't do any school at all except maybe read a story together. I think he has gotten used to not doing much. Every year I try hard to plan so that interruptions are minimal, and again this year it hasn't worked very well. It took me two years to do 2nd grade with him, and here we are way behind in 3rd. Still, I don't want to put him in school, although he is asking to go.
Sorry for the length of this!
Anyway, so I have been looking on the Singapore math site as well as others for information. I figure my son would be about 2B. On the Singapore site there is what looks like a new edition, the "Standards" edition, and it says that it's been adapted to conform to the standards of California public schools. That is not necessarily a selling point for me.
Does anyone know anything about this? If there is a thread elsewhere on this, please direct me.
My reason for looking is that my 3rd grade son has hit a wall with being motivated with school in general, but with math in particular. He is absolutely hating math. We have been using ABeka since the beginning. I think it's just that it's getting more complicated with the long division and having to memorize all these multiplication tables and all. So, I don't know if there would be anything that would make it more fun except the teacher -- me. We have had another year this year of many interruptions and distractions with school, many of which are out of my control. We are only on lesson 50-something (out of 170, even though I never get past about 150 b/c I don't think I need to), so we are pretty far behind. We used to have fun with math, I made it an active experience for him, but now there's just so much pencil and paper, and that gets him down. I still try to include activity, but it's getting harder to do. There are many days I don't even get to math, and some days we don't do any school at all except maybe read a story together. I think he has gotten used to not doing much. Every year I try hard to plan so that interruptions are minimal, and again this year it hasn't worked very well. It took me two years to do 2nd grade with him, and here we are way behind in 3rd. Still, I don't want to put him in school, although he is asking to go.
Sorry for the length of this!