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I am about to place my order for Preparing Hearts. I notice they sell (or suggest) the textbooks along with the workbooks for this level. This leads me to believe that there are not added hands-on activities with the math plans in Preparing. For those who have used 3A/3B, do you recommend the textbooks? Are they pretty easy to use? My DD is very sharp and I rarely have to explain a concept to her, and we rarely do the hands-on activities because she hasn't needed them to help her understand.

Thanks for any input.

I bought the textbooks for 3A/3B because I needed to learn how to teach the Singapore way. The material in this level is easy to teach so the textbooks aren't necessary if mom is okay with math. I still recommend the textbooks bc it provides reviews and practice pages as well as examples to use while teaching.

I buy them so the kids can be as independent at math as possible. I'm good at math but understand everyone learns math in different ways, so I don't want to narrow each lesson to "my way ". I like the texts for having the way this program teaches and if my child doesn't understand, I teach from another angle.

Thanks! So do you open the textbook every day to teach before your child does the workbook? Does the Preparing guide tell you which pages to do in textbook and workbook? Just wondering since it is a bit different from the guides we have already done.

Yes the guide tells you. He just usually gets out both and refers to the text if he needs to. But he's a minimalist, so if he can figure it out on his own, he doesn't crack open the text.

Thanks! I am so excited I am going to go place my order now! Good thing they have it online so I don't have to wake up the Austin family to do it.

I always taught from the text and then gave the child the workbook to do on their own. Of course I was there to answer questions on the workbook problems.

I highly recommend the textbooks because that is where the teaching part really comes in. You could teach the material yourself but I think that would be more difficult to come up with examples, etc. The textbook gives great visual representations of the problems and talks through the why and thought behind the concept and problem solving. Even if this is an easy level for you to teach, I think the Singapore textbooks give good examples and make the material easy to understand. As you continue on, you would definitely want to see the Singapore way of doing things because unless you were taught way differently than I was, it will be a different way of looking at some problems than traditionally taught. All good ways (wish I had been taught this way ) but different.

Following through with the textbooks at this point really makes sense too. This is the next step in learning. First younger dc need the concrete (manipulatives, etc.) examples to learn a concept. Then they move into the pictorial representations like the pictures in the textbooks. Then later, they are able to deal entirely in the abstract and grasp concepts without the concrete or pictorial examples. Following the plan of doing the hands on activities up through 2B then following that with the textbooks in 3A through 6B transitions them nicely into being able to think abstractly and apply all of these concepts they've learned to higher mathematics.

Like 8arrows, we usually went through the textbook pages together looking at the problems, then the dc did the workbook pages on their own. If they had a question or problems I would help them, but for the most part the workbook part was independent, but the textbook part we did together.

I also, am using the 3A/3B textbook and workbook combination. We go over together the textbook pages. Then she attempts the workbook pages on her own.

Thanks everyone. I did order the textbooks. I'm sure it will help me teach, and help my DD learn. pjdobro I appreciate the insight into how using those resources will help my DD grow and how she will grow into abstract thinking. Surprisingly, Singapore is a lot of the way I learned math, but I am not necessarily organized enough with my thoughts or anything to be able to teach her that way. Again, most often, I haven't really had to teach her as she picks up on it very quickly and well. She is already an abstract thinker. But eventually, probably soon, we will reach a point of her not understanding and when we do I want to have that available. It will be nice to have something to review with her each day.