How is math taught in your town's schools? (buy, elementary school)

[gardener34]

D 303 St. charles: everyday math.

"The focus seems far too heavy on advanced concepts before a lot of kids are ready for them and doesn't spend nearly enough time on foundations. " I had this explained to me, they keep going back into the same concepts so it is OK if they don't completely master the concept right away... weird. But my kids are both doing well in math and getting good marks, so I am not complaining yet.

They have never told us to not use flashcards, on the contrary. They recommend them and we do them at home.

[reloop]

Originally Posted by gardener34

D 303 St. charles: everyday math.


They have never told us to not use flashcards, on the contrary. They recommend them and we do them at home.

I think they've (thankfully) long since realized that between disgruntled parents, and lack of actual classroom instruction time, it behooves them to encourage home use of flashcards and facts practice. That's a good thing in my opinion as in the beginning, we parents weren't encouraged to teach them the way we learned at all. It was feared that it would take away from "mathematical thinking." Also, any type of "rote memorization" was to be avoided like the plague .

I'm glad to see that mindset starting to change as I too believe that elements from traditional and constructivist math can be effectively combined. Although I think that fact practice is a must with any math program, my concern lies more those families who lack time (for whatever reasons - work, etc.) to practice facts with their kids.

I think what may be a practical solution would be to send home a short fact sheet instead of an EM "count and graph the number of pockets in each family members pants" as homework. I also don't see a lot of benefit (beyond Kindergarten) in having them count the number of windows in the house etc...as by then, they've usually had plenty of practice counting things. I understand that they are trying to teach "concepts" by doing projects like those; however, maybe it's just me, but I can't see pocket counting in the 3rd grade as much of anything but a waste of precious time. Certainly it can be implemented in the day's lesson, but I think EM would be more welcomed by parents if the homework at least was something that they could remotely relate to.

[STL Mom]

My daughter brought home an Everyday Math homework assignment that involved measuring the height of a table, then the height of your room, then figuring out how many tables you could stack up in your room.
I found her in her room, physically stacking every desk and table on top of each other - she'd gotten three high and was getting a fourth from another room when I caught her. I tried to explain that the reason we use math is so we don't have to stack tables, but I couldn't keep a straight face and had to leave the room so I didn't burst out laughing right in front of her.
In the time it took to put all the tables back and got her room cleaned up, we could have done a lot of flash cards!

[ahava]

If my child misunderstood a division problem and started moving furniture around I'd be more concerned about her reading comprehension skills than her math skills.

[purplesky]

STL Mom, maybe your daughter was just following directions in her EM book by stacking everything--after all, doesn't EM use 3-5 different methods to get at the solution of a problem?!

My son isn't even allowed to bring home his EM book or his EM "journal". I had to go to the library some months back to look at a reference copy of EM. It was sobering. A lot of talking but no doing--hardly any problems in the whole book.

[reloop]

Originally Posted by STL Mom

My daughter brought home an Everyday Math homework assignment that involved measuring the height of a table, then the height of your room, then figuring out how many tables you could stack up in your room.
I found her in her room, physically stacking every desk and table on top of each other - she'd gotten three high and was getting a fourth from another room when I caught her. I tried to explain that the reason we use math is so we don't have to stack tables,

Heh, heh, heh...just goes to prove how literal kids are! Have you gotten to the assignment where they have to figure out how many termites will fit on a cm, m, etc... or how long a chain of termites would be yet? This would be fore the 3rd grade level. Bear in mind they have no mastery yet of division or multiplication to apply "rules." Oh, that pesky "rule" - an abomination! We did the termite one last night. We are sent the Reference Book; however, it had absolutely nothing for my daughter to look up what she had promptly forgotten in class yesterday. She got through about half of it before she was lost. Needless to say, it was a long night.

Oh, won't someone please call the "Orkin Man?" Please pardon my heavy sarcasm . It's how I cope.

[reloop]

Originally Posted by purplesky

STL Mom, maybe your daughter was just following directions in her EM book by stacking everything--after all, doesn't EM use 3-5 different methods to get at the solution of a problem?!

My son isn't even allowed to bring home his EM book or his EM "journal". I had to go to the library some months back to look at a reference copy of EM. It was sobering. A lot of talking but no doing--hardly any problems in the whole book.

Purplesky
There should be no reason for them not to "allow" your son to bring his books home. They may not want kids to lose them or damage them, which I suppose is understandable, but really, you need access to what he's learning and/or not learning. Perhaps the school needs to be reminded who pays the taxes that pay their salaries? For all intents and purposes, the town owns those books, and you employ the town for services you need via the payment of taxes.

I'm lucky in that regard: Most of the teachers in our school bend over backward to help us and send anything we request - they are generally fabulous about working with us. I just don't agree with their choice of math curriculum. Other than that, they are great.

[GoCUBS1]

This is just a general observation... It seems that many parents from my child's school complain about the EM math curriculum yet they fail to supplement math instruction at home (this is not directed at anyone on this site as I think most of you are the type of involved parents that do supplement). It just seems that most parents require their kids to read every night and they regulary go to the library, etc... yet they fail to supplement w/math workbooks, flashcards, or just "real-world" math tasks like calculating grocery costs, etc.. And if they do supplement, many just enroll them in a program like Kumon rather than working with them at home.

It may be more important to supplement math instruction than reading as, IMO, schools often do a better job teaching reading (more school hours dedicated to it, better trained reading teachers, more often differentiated/reading levels, etc.). To me, it's pretty easy to supplement the math instruction as there are many resources out there and math can be more easily broken down into clear sequential steps w/a correct answer (e.g. as oppossed to reading comprehension or writing assignments).

Also, the EM HomeLINK homework from our school seems to be just a quick daily review. It takes my kids about 5 minutes to complete. I like this because it gives them more time to work on the more accelerated math that I give them.

[reloop]

Originally Posted by GoCUBS1

This is just a general observation... It seems that many parents from my child's school complain about the EM math curriculum yet they fail to supplement math instruction at home (this is not directed at anyone on this site as I think most of you are the type of involved parents that do supplement). It just seems that most parents require their kids to read every night and they regulary go to the library, etc... yet they fail to supplement w/math workbooks, flashcards, or just "real-world" math tasks like calculating grocery costs, etc.. And if they do supplement, many just enroll them in a program like Kumon rather than working with them at home.

It may be more important to supplement math instruction than reading as, IMO, schools often do a better job teaching reading (more school hours dedicated to it, better trained reading teachers, more often differentiated/reading levels, etc.). To me, it's pretty easy to supplement the math instruction as there are many resources out there and math can be more easily broken down into clear sequential steps w/a correct answer (e.g. as oppossed to reading comprehension or writing assignments).

I hear and understand what you're saying; however, for those of us who have children who aren't - oh, how shall we put it - thrilled at the prospect of sitting down after a very long day at school to do even more book work, this becomes a major battle. I sort of relate it to having to work my nine hour shift and then come home and complete more paperwork on top of it. I work in a "crazy busy" place. The only thing I want to do is unwind after work. I have more K - 6 mathematical resources in my kitchen than do most of the K - 6 teachers at our school . It's "dragging my horses to the water" after they reach the saturation point that I currently grapple with. They're coming around albeit slowly. The one problem that I find is that they won't ask their teachers any questions. That leads them to come home uncertain of how to proceed. Tell me, what's your "secret" for getting them just to "get over it" and practice? I'm all ears!!

[purplesky]

Purplesky
There should be no reason for them not to "allow" your son to bring his books home. They may not want kids to lose them or damage them, which I suppose is understandable, but really, you need access to what he's learning and/or not learning. Perhaps the school needs to be reminded who pays the taxes that pay their salaries? For all intents and purposes, the town owns those books, and you employ the town for services you need via the payment of taxes]

I actually briefly was able to browse the EM book during curriculum night, but my son seems scared to bring his math "journal" home ("we're not allowed too!" he insists with a horrified look on his face, as if I'm asking him to break in to the Pentagon and bring home state secrets)

Another mother I know at another district 54 school had to get special permission for her son to bring home the math journal.

Since he'll be going to another school in the fall, I've just been doing math with him at home. For the most part, the math links he brings home are either too easy or too confusing. I just give him other math to do. For the past few days, we went over all the math in "What Your Second Grader Should Know." It is a very straightforward text. I'm pretty lucky that I'm off Mon, Tues, and Wed so we usually do stuff right after dinner, or early in the morning since we're both early risers.

Honestly, though, I think most parents just buy the package that the school district sells them. Most parents in "good" neighborhoods just assume their children are getting a good education. Why should parents even have to supplement their child's math education? If they taught it the way they used to, with plenty of problems and exercises, it would be much easier to actually know how your child is doing. Now, we get these dumb Home Links, which basically are little math games.