RightStart Level C-how useful did you find the T-square stuff?

[HappyGrace]

We're petering out midway through C. From those who finished this level, how would you rate it? Did you feel it was worth it? I'm a just-the-facts ma'am kind of person (and so is dd) and this is driving me insane! I might consider continuing if you can tell me it's really accomplishing enough to spend our time on.

[GretaLynne]

I'm afraid I don't have much help to offer. We just got through it (unless there's more to come?). I thought it was kinda neat but my dd HATED IT! She usually loves math, but man she hated that. I hope someone else can answer your question as to how useful it is -- and then I'll know whether or not to feel bad for forcing her to do it! ;)

[HappyGrace]

It just seems like they take a long time and dance around a lot to teach these things. I have always loved the conceptual presentation in RS (we did A and B), but it seems to be weaker in C than it was in the other levels.

Dd8 is just ending second grade so we're "behind" since I'm only a third of the way through C. Would I be completely missing the point of the program, with the warmups and gradual intro of concepts, if I just telescope the whole rest of C into about two months? But then if I don't do all the things slowly so she can assimilate it, would I be setting her up to fail? So, for instance, even though I could teach all the lessons on area in about two days, I'm afraid she won't be strong enough in the multiplication to handle it because I whizzed through that part.

And it should be said here that I'm transitioning her over to CLE math as her main math, so she'll see all this again. So for those of you who have BTDT, should I just ditch RS or finish through C?

[OhElizabeth]

The fastest way to get nowhere is to try to do too many things at once. If you want to do CLE, go to CLE right now. Keep your RS C handy and when she comes to those concepts in CLE that you haven't covered yet, use your RS manual for ideas on how to present it. Ultimately something has to drive and you have focus your energy on it in order to move forward.

[HappyGrace]

great quote! I will paste it on my forehead as I'm doing my planning.

[siloam]

Singapore is the main program for the older kids (oldest 2), so with them I think nothing of overviewing the concepts. Shhh.....my oldest only overviews.

BTW my oldest is in the middle of C and will be a 5th grader (though she is right on target with Singapore books), and my 2nd dd is just finishing B (a little behind with Singapore books too, but she has plenty of time to "catch up"-my oldest was "behind" in this grade too).

Heather

[OhElizabeth]

You know, I'm thinking I should slip it upside my forehead too! :)

[Capt_Uhura]

I don't know how much the T-square stuff is useful later on but the warm-ups are useful. It seems to be the time to cement the math facts and to begin nailing the multiplication tables. However, I noticed in one of the lessons, you make an equilateral triangle and cut it into thirds. You make another and cut it in half. You then take the one in half and cut it in thirds making sixths and vice versa for the others. I felt this was a nice intro to adding unlike fractions by finding the least common denominator. Actually I think those numbers aren't right b/c the final triangle was in twelfths...so it must have been thirds and fourths. My son enjoyed it so we made our way through. I did skip the last couple of lessons of that but still did the warm-ups.

[HappyGrace]

read every lesson, and telescoped the whole thing into about 5 weeks based on my dd's needs and the conceptual topics I wanted out of it. I really wanted to hit subtraction the way RS teaches it, so we'll do that, etc. I didn't think the way they did multiplication, fractions, etc., was that different from any other program out there except for a couple of things, so we'll pretty much skip all that. I'm really happy with how I figured this out. I'm getting much more comfortable with cherry picking what works for us out of curricula.

Now, that being said, this is math and I don't want gaps, but I know we'll hit all of this stuff again in CLE, which is our new main program starting in August. (We've already used it for 6 months along with RS, so I know it's a good fit for us, and I've cked out extensive samples up to grade 7 to make sure it goes where I want.) I also felt comfortable doing this because dd8 is advanced and has already seen many of these topics in other contexts, since she's old for her grade and we do lots of other living math work. I'm NOT saying I would suggest cherry picking through any math curriculum under different circumstances!

Thanks for the help!

[Reya]

We're petering out midway through C. From those who finished this level, how would you rate it? Did you feel it was worth it? I'm a just-the-facts ma'am kind of person (and so is dd) and this is driving me insane! I might consider continuing if you can tell me it's really accomplishing enough to spend our time on.

It feeds into RS Geometry, really. It doesn't have a huge amount of value at this level, though, so if you want to, you could probably get away with skipping it. We'll be there by Monday; I'll see how it goes. I guess it depends on how MUCH time you spend on it.