Math stress - my daughter is bored...

[Heather in VA]

I'm really frustrated. This happens every year. Please forgive any of this that sounds braggy. I don't mean it that way but it's important to try to figure out how to solve our problems. My 9 year old is quite gifted. She can not stand to be bored. If she is bored in the least she starts whining and it's like pulling teeth to get her to do anything. Now I do expect her to do what I say without this whining but I also feel it's my responsibility to give her challenging work since that's what modivates her. We went through this with Latin. I wanted to continue with Lively Latin because I thought it was more age appropriate and she whined and complained and moaned through every lesson. She claimed it was too easy and wanted to do Henle which I thought was too hard. Lo and behold, she begs for Latin and loves the hard work involved.

Right now we are using Singpore with Shiller for more hands-on concept learning. I don't use Shiller much with her because she just 'gets' the concepts. (I love, love, love it for my youngest though and wish I had used it with my oldest). Singpore bores her. We use IP and CWP. She gets tired of the same topics for too long. I feel like I really need to make a jump in difficulty. I'm wondering about just jumping to a pre-algebra program. That will cover all the fundamentals won't it? Does pre-algebra treat everything as review or does it cover things as new? I'm a math major so I'm comfortable stopping and making my own lessons, pulling from other places etc if she gets stuck somewhere but I can't do it all myself because of time issues.

I'm sure this is just a rambling mess. Any ideas?

Thanks
Heather

[dhudson]

I have a very bright 10 year old who is also doing Singapore and I just tell him to go as quickly as he can while still achieving 95% or above and we'll move on. He's gone through his last book in 2 months. So moving on to the next. If he keeps going this way, he'll complete 2 years of math in this year. I don't know what's next but we are just going to go as fast as his brain can go. Sonlight has a Singapore math game (VROOT and VROOM) which he enjoyed last year and Math Detective by The Critical Thinking Co.

I slow him down some by having learn both latin and spanish.

I also have him read an enormous amount of books.

[OhElizabeth]

I was surprised you don't already have her in pre-algebra. Go ahead and do it and keep going with the basic math concurrently. Not like you can't fill in any holes you come to. But don't put her into something sorry conceptually trying to keep it age appropriate or easy. Get her the pre-algebra/algebra she wants.

[Laura Corin]

You could just use the text book from Singapore, adding in the other books when she hits concepts she has to work on. I did this one year for Calvin, until he found his level.

Best wishes

Laura

[nmoira]

What level is she working at? Do you use just the IP and CWP? Have you looked at Challenge Math (http://www.challengemath.com)?

[Cadam]

With Singapore are you just having her do the text and not the workbook? The workbook would be overkill for a kid like this. I don't think it would hurt to get the pre-Algebra. You can look over the S&S of the other books and make sure you touch on anything she missed along the way.

[MyCalling]

My 7yo son is thriving with Math on the Level (http://www.mathonthelevel.com/), which is from preschool through pre-algebra. He used Singapore and flew through it last year and he is now freely doing 3rd through 5th grade math concepts with MotL. It's completely based on how fast or slow the child wants to go without workbooks to bore a gifted child.

[Heather in VA]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to look through some of these suggestions. She's in Singapore 5B. I think we are going to do some Life of Fred, we already did the Fractions, and see how that goes. I really wanted to just have a curriculum and go through it from beginning to end, but that's just not working for her and I'm getting tired of trying to adjust the pace. I never seem to get it right for her.

Heather

[Starr]

You could have her do the chapter tests. My dd started Algebra in 7th grade and part way through the year I wanted to be sure she remembered all her basic math. She rolled her eyes at me and worked through the book's chapter tests scoring very well and moving to the next.

[camibami]

We hit a developmental wall last year, and switched gears instead of moving to pre-algebra. This year DD is doing MUS, because its totally different than what she was using (Saxon). Its been great- we started mid-year last year and now are on MUS E. Its review, but its *different* review, because its looking at the same thing (basic elementary math) in a new way. She just wasn't ready for the abstract-ness of pre-algebra, but had finished Saxon up to 8/7. I think next year we will go into pre-algebra, with Saxon or something more traditional after finishing MUS to their pre-algebra.

So thats my long-winded way of saying maybe take some time to approach math from different angles, as a way of slowing her down and a reinforcement. And for fun, LOL. I am not math-minded in the least so DD and math is my most challenging part of hs'ing. I too would love to just find one math and stick with it all the way through (Saxon...I want it to be Saxon, darnit!) but it wasn't meant to be.

[AngieW in Texas]

You may be hitting the concepts too many ways if you're using the textbook, workbook, IP, and CWP. My oldest did every problem in the textbook and the workbook. That would have been too much review for my middle dd, so she did only the workbook. I tried to slow her down some by adding in CWP, but it drove her nuts.