Let's Talk About Math: Playing Catch-Up

This post has been a few weeks in the making as this is a success story in the making. I don't feel like we're "great" in the math department yet but I do feel like we are on the way.

Where we came from:
I feel like Eliot should be very good at math. There is really nothing holding him back. His perceptual abilities have stunned me since he was little and he did, in fact, test highly gifted in that area and the "Working Memory" area. Dad is mathy. My mom tells me I was once mathy too (I think those days have passed.) Anyway, El just had a lot going for him. I divulge this information not to brag, but rather as a prelude to my caveat: What we did worked for El because he was fairly high-potential & fairly low-performance. I don't think it would work for everyone.

Where we went wrong:
I never taught him to read, he just started doing it one day. I guess I thought math would come the same way. Apparently it does not (in our case, anyway.) El's first years at public school offered little to no math instruction and I didn't do any afterschooling. I just didn't want to push anything on him.

When I began placement testing El for homeschool last summer, I had to go all the way back to the Singapore 1B test to find a test he could successfully complete. Even then, he barely passed the 1B level.

Making a Plan:

The WTM, my "everything" spine, suggested third grade should spend 50 minutes a day on math, so that's what I planned for. I purchased Math in Focus: The Singapore Approach 3A and vowed to just try to struggle through it as best we could.El would work on MiF on M, T, Th & F and on W he would work on our other math book, Primary Grade Challenge Math. I also planned to work on multiplication tables for 5 minutes a day. The first day we would count by ones, then the next day I had him fill in the ones table and the remaining days he worked on flashcards of 1X1 up to 1X12. The next week I had him skip count by twos and review the ones flashcards. The third week he would skip count by threes and do twos flashcards, and so on and so forth. This part is going pretty well.


Setbacks:
The first week of MiF was okay, but a few days in we hit "mental math" and it sent us both into a small panic. I frantically consulted my mom (teacher extraordinaire) and the entire WTM forum for help. I thought MiF 3A was too hard: We needed something different, something non-Singaporean. Everyone else disagreed. So we decided to stick it out after taking a week off of the MiF program. So, the following week we put away the MiF book and I downloaded Math Mammoth Add/Subtract 2A. I watched every math video I could find about teaching subtraction. I pulled out the manipulatives and workmats,

the base ten blocks, the Khan Academy practice map. (In the meantime, I decided Em had to do math at home. She tested easily into 1A so I purchased the Singapore textbook and workbook. I worked through some of it with El so that he could gain a better understanding of number bonds.)

He spent two weeks in a "math intensive" with no text book. Just manipulatives (and Math Mammoth worksheets, occasionally.) To keep it interesting, we did continue with the Challenge Math book and we did some problems out of another workbook, Beginning Algebra Thinking. As long as it didn't involve subtraction, he could handle it.

At some point, I heard about xtramath.org, a free math fact practice site. I had El do this 4X/wk. I found a third grade math workbook at Goodwill and used it for drills a couple of times a week.

Carry on:
We started back in with MiF and worked our way through. Some of the extra things worked beautifully and we continued on with them (xtramath) and some have been forgotten (algebra.) Once we got to multiplication, I could practically hear Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" playing in the background as we left subtraction by the side of the road. I still have El work on subtraction a couple of days each week, and he is currently working on mastering subtraction facts on xtramath, so it's not like we've totally abandoned subtraction, you know? We're just seeing other people for a little while.

What did math look like by Week 12?
4 times a week we work on MiF. Somedays we work for 25 minutes and make it through a section, easy peasy. Other days we have to spend two 60 minute days on one section. We still do Challenge Math on Wednesdays, followed by a Math Mammoth worksheet or some Khan Academy random math learning for fun.

El does xtramath 3 or 4 times a week, with each time taking 3-10 minutes (depending entirely upon how lazy he feels like being. It shouldn't really take longer than 4 or 5 minutes.) I have him practice subtraction with borrowing and multiplication with regrouping a couple of times a week. We have some second grade math games from my mom which we play a couple of times each week. We have a homemade multiplication game which we will probably play once this week. He does beestar.org math twice a week because he likes it.

So, for anyone who likes lists as much as I do:

• MiF textbook and workbook- 4x/ wk
• Zaccaro- 1x/ wk
• math games- 3x/wk
• xtramath.org math fact practice- 3-4x/wk
• worksheet practice (Math Mammoth or other)- 3x/wk
  
• beestar- 2x/wk (although I don't ask him to do this: He chooses to do it.) 
• Khan videos/ practice 1x/wk (again, he does this because he wants to. I don't require it.) 

Overall, I would say we do spend more than the WTM classical education recommended 50 minutes a day on math, but not as much as you would think. We probably average 6-7 hours each week on math when you add in all the math games and extra practice. Considering he doesn't have "homework," I think this is a very reasonable amount of time for a third grader to spend on math.

Where's the success story?
Oh, hey, I almost forgot that part. Well, prior to day 1 El struggled through placement for Singapore 1B. After working through multiplication, he now slowly but surely made his way through the 3A placement test. Fifty five days of math and he has improved his level by 3 semesters. I feel like half of the problem was confidence (for both of us) and the other half was that he needed the material presented over and over in a variety of ways. When he found a way that worked, he needed drills at least 3 or 4 times each week.

He has gone from: "Yeah, math makes me kind of nervous" to "I love math!" and, to me, that is the biggest success of all. :) 

Oh. One more thing. If you ever hear me mention my math arsenal, I'm not foolin' around, my friend.