Singapore Math 5A - Algebra?

[MelInKansas]

My oldest is in Singapore Math 5A and the assignment for today was to do Textbook Page 25. These are complex story problems and I am struggling with how to teach her to do them without using Algebra. In fact we are using Algebra. I do have the HIG but haven't cracked it open yet (haven't found anything that confused us up to this point). Do we use Algebra? It seems to me any other ways of figuring this out are way more difficult.

Thanks.

[Nealewill]

We did not solve them using algebra. We solved them using the bar graphs similar to how they have explained it in the book. I understand how tempting it is to use algebra too. And I love that they are thinking through these challenging questions. But if you are struggling with teach her using the bar graphs, I would personally encourage you to use the HIG. As she moves farther through 5A, here are going to be fractions that will need to use the same method. And if she isn't practicing this method now, it will only get more challenging later. In 6, they will also rely heavily on this method too. This is just my opinion about using this method though and am very happy we worked through it. And yes, the word problems are challenging. I think I ended up helping my dd with a few of them. Here are pictures of her work on these problems.



PS - you will noticed on a few of these that when she does division, she writes the answer in a different place than traditionally done. For example, if she wrote the equation 5 divided into 30 with the half rectangle symbol to show division, instead of writing the answer 6 on the line above the 30, she writes in underneath. It is a "different" way of doing it but she does this so that she can then multiply that answer by something else and still keep the equation in column form. I am only mentioning this because I saw that she did this specifically on one of the problems and wanted you to know what she is doing (because it will just look downright confusing if you didn't know that is what she was doing).

[countrymom]

We just finished 5 A and B and I agree with using the bar graphs at this point. This was also the first time I ordered the HIG as well. This has certainly been an interesting year in math , but I love what Singapore is teaching my son.

[MelInKansas]

When you know what you should've done, and just need someone to tell you to do it!

Yes I will go back and look at the HIG and see how to help her do those problems. Thanks for sharing what you have done!

My daughter has now had an introduction to Algebra.

[Nealewill]

When you know what you should've done, and just need someone to tell you to do it!

Ha ha. This is my life!!!!!!