Math Facts

[christyg]

Hi ladies! We are doing Beyond this year with my 7 year old daughter. We are about to finish up in Singapore 1A and about to start in 1B. We starting doing some math facts (with flashcards) about 6 weeks ago and I am thinking about holding off on them for a while.

My daughter seems really good at math. She has not had any trouble so far with doing the math facts on top of the Beyond guide math and workbooks.

I actually am the one who is having the most trouble with it. I have always been really good at math. But, Singapore is proving to be a real challenge for me! I feel like I am having to retrain MY brain to be able to do it. The math that I grew up with is so different than Singapore. We were not taught how to do mental math.

I really want Singapore to work for us, because I feel like it would be best program for my kiddos.

My question is how many of you do math facts? In talking with some other homeschool moms doing Singapore, they all seem to think that the math facts will come naturally and don't do any. Also, if you do math facts, did you start in Beyond or wait until Bigger or Preparing?

I think that I just worry that focusing on the math facts (memorizing) right now is working against what Singapore is trying to do. And, I don't want to confuse her by doing them. I am having a hard enough time myself trying to teach it a different way than what I was taught. How may of you are having this same problem?

Any thoughts on this would be soooo appreciated! Thanks soooo much!

Christy

[cirons]

HI Christy,

I understand your concerns! I recently changed over to Singapore after doing a more structured maths program, more like the way I understand! I had tears in the first week! I felt like giving up and going to the way I knew again. We are in about week 4 now of Singapore and my kids have already picked up doing the mental math and it is starting to make more sense to me! (We are doing 1A and 2B.) My kids are really enjoying the shorter lessons and being able to work stuff out in their head! (Which is how we do it as adults anyway.) I want to stick with it because it seems like a more practical, real life way of learning math. We don't always have a pen and paper on us in the supermarket to work out how to multiply, add, divide etc! Singapore will teach the kids how to make math practical. I am not going to teach math facts and will see how we go. I like to play lots of card games and stuff with the kids anyway which will utilise things they learn in math. (Yahtzee etc.)
Enjoy!!!

Blessings,

Corrie

[creativemommy]

Hi! I felt the same way with my son last year when he was working through 1A and 1B. The teacher in me wanted him to be drilling math facts and when I finally relaxed about it (stopped drilling him daily ) he relaxed, too. We followed Carrie's plans and played lots of math games (Peggy Kaye's book Games for Math is great!). He's halfway through 2A doing regrouping and not struggling at all adding problems like 5+6 or 9+5. He's learned them without the drilling & flashcards.

[MomtoJGJE]

We are only just now starting 2A, but I'm not going to worry about math facts. Just with doing the workbooks, activities in the guides, and real life situations (I have 4 candies, if I give you 2 how many will I have? If I cut this sandwich in half how many pieces will I get?) my girls are getting basic facts memorized... just by repetition. My oldest has no trouble with adding, multiplying, and dividing mentally... she struggles a bit with subtraction. My dd2 has no issues with adding or subtracting up to 12 (we play dice games) and dd3 (just turned 4 in October) is following along nicely and can add and subtract up to 5 mentally and up to 10 using manipulatives.

[psreit]

Thanks for this post. I have been wondering where Singapore leads, because dd will be getting into 1A before the year is out. She is doing very simple edition and still counts out the objects in both sets to get the final answer, rather than looking at the number from the first set and then adding the rest. I guess it will eventually click. I had our local school psychologist tell me that math can be a struggle for kids with CP. So, I'm just letting dd take it slow. I like the short lessons in Singapore.

[my3sons]

I did math addition and subtraction flashcards in the summer with my older ds. I don't think it was necessary. It seemed he still knew his facts better than he did in the summer just by doing 2A and the hands-on activities within HOD. So, when it came time for his multiplication/division, I started off doing flashcards in the summer - for about 3 - 4 weeks tops. It became kind of drudgery, so we stopped and just enjoyed the summer months off. Again, once we started 3A, and especially 3B, somehow the facts just began to click better.

So, with my next ds, who BTW is not as naturally math-minded as my first, we did 1 week of addition/subtraction flashcards in the summer and stopped. Near the beginning of 2A, he hit a bit of a bump, and I went to half-speed and did the HOD hands-on lessons a bunch for about 2 week or so. Now, he's all caught up and knows his facts well. He is doing beautifully with his beginning multiplication and division.

I share this story with you to say, I would not add math flashcards unless you feel you absolutely need to. I'd be patient and wait to see if they learn them. Give it some real time, and provide counters if need be for awhile or encourage skip counting. I'd say around the end of 2A, dc should begin to have their addition/subtraction facts down enough where they can solve problems fairly quickly, and likewise, around the end of 3B or even 4A, have their multiplication/division facts down quite well. At that point, a quick run through the flashcards and just setting aside the few they don't know as well to practice may be a good idea. With my youngest, I'll probably not do any flashcards, as I think - I think - I've learned to be patient with facts. Remind me of this then though, okay?

In Christ,
Julie

[3sweeties]

Thanks for posting this, Christy! My DS 8.5 is actually having issues with retaining math facts above 6x6 right now?!? He is towards the end of Singapore 2B. He does pretty well with his addition/subtraction facts through 20. I did work on addition/subtraction facts through 9 flashcards about once or twice a week with him his 1st grade year before we switched to Singapore. I don't know if that made a difference or not, to be honest...it all just "clicked" one day -- really towards the end of his second grade year (he did SM 1B/2A). I hope the same thing will happen with multiplication/division! The mental math addition/subtraction is STILL giving him some problems and I think we are going to have to camp out on them for a while after Christmas break. SO, you are not alone!

Anyway, if you have an Ipad or Iphone, there are some great math games in the Apps section that you can download for free -- DS seems to really like those as a fun way to reinforce his facts.

Julie, thanks for the tip that the multiplication facts/division facts will probably not be easily solved until the end of 3B/4A. We are just now getting ready to start 3A and I was worrying that he didn't have all of them down pat quite yet and can get frustrated easily. This is good to know!

[Mommamo]

I have never worked on the facts with my 7 yo. We are starting 2b in a couple of days, I guess probably after Christmas. We did practice (through games) what pairs make 10, like 4 and 6, 3 and 7, etc. We also practiced what makes 5 (4 and 1, 3 and 2). So knowing that... she has just been able to figure out anything. And really, she's gotten pretty quick at it. I think understanding it that way makes it much easier to do multiple digit addition, and especially subtraction.

We are just in the beginning stages of multiplication and division, as we have only learned 2s and 3s. We've been doing that with skip counting, and just with the repetition I can see that she's already picking a lot up. Like we did 7 x 2 and she just knew it by having repeated it over and over. HTH