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I was helping my fiancee's niece with math homework last night and it was not easy. I actually majored in math and economics, but I don't really use any of that crap at work, so I've forgotten most of it. She was really struggling with basic Algebra II/Trig homework, so I had to spend about an hour going through the textbook and walking her through the problem sets. Her mom just sat at the table and said, "I wish I could help her, but I don't know how."
I'm just wondering how other people have gotten their kids to excel at math when they're not good at math themselves. Did you hire a tutor? Did you send them to math camps during the summer? I just want to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter.
Also, what approach do you guys take towards education in general when it comes to your kids? How much TV do they watch? What activities are they involved in? Or you yourself a nerd? Do you talk to your kids about what you do at work? Do your kids read a lot? Do you read a lot? How often do you visit museums? How do you encourage intellectual curiosity?
I was helping my fiancee's niece with math homework last night and it was not easy. I actually majored in math and economics, but I don't really use any of that crap at work, so I've forgotten most of it. She was really struggling with basic Algebra II/Trig homework, so I had to spend about an hour going through the textbook and walking her through the problem sets. Her mom just sat at the table and said, "I wish I could help her, but I don't know how."
I'm just wondering how other people have gotten their kids to excel at math when they're not good at math themselves. Did you hire a tutor? Did you send them to math camps during the summer? I just want to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter.
Also, what approach do you guys take towards education in general when it comes to your kids? How much TV do they watch? What activities are they involved in? Or you yourself a nerd? Do you talk to your kids about what you do at work? Do your kids read a lot? Do you read a lot? How often do you visit museums? How do you encourage intellectual curiosity?
We homeschool, so when our child's math needs grew beyond our math abilities, we used an online class and accompanying textbook. If our child's needs grow beyond our ability to provide explanations/clarifications even with textbook help, we will probably hire a tutor.
As far as education in general, we do not watch much television, and from the start, we generally tried to avoid any television or movies specifically marketed to children, mostly because we found them to be incredibly annoying and addictive -- and yeah, even at the risk of sounding like one of those old coots yelling, "You kids get off my lawn!" I was surprised at the nasty, eye-rolling attitude of a number of characters in children's shows and didn't want to endorse that attitude, even passively, by letting our child watch them. What was the use, when there were so many better things on?
Yes, we do read a great deal, and continued to read aloud (or have our child read to us) well after basic reading was mastered. We listen to audiobooks together as well -- often nonfiction meant for a general adult audience, which communicates a great deal of factual information and allows for in-depth discussion. Here too, we avoid a lot of the fiction specifically marketed for children, tweens, and teens, especially since much of it is written at the fourth- or fifth-grade reading level and has prose as dull as dishwater. Just suffice it to say that we're not big fans of sparkly vampires around here. Our child just got a Kindle and is delighted at the fact that there are tons of books in the public domain to read at the touch of a button -- and many of those books are NOT written at the fourth-grade level nor marketed to fifteen-year-olds.
Eh, I don't know...I know this makes me sound like Cranky Old Lawn Guy again, but I've just come to the conclusion as a parent that our culture force-feeds infantalization to our children. Probably the subject for another thread, though.
I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for or not, but I'll take a stab at it. I was never good at math, and just tried to help my kids muddle through as best as I could. In later years, I learned that if I had an idea of what the formula meant and how each element worked in relation to the other elements, I could remember the formula and how to plug the numbers into the equation. I couldn't just rember an equation and how it worked, I had to be able to understand it, then I could work it.
I did-and do- have the upmost respect for education and tried to pass that along to my children. One of the best things I ever did was invest in a set of encyclopedias. I would start a conversation designed to bring up questions, then send them to the encyclopedia to look up the answer. Before long, they were looking up things just because they were interested. Museums? Not so much. Most of our interests was an is in the natural world and how it works.
We homeschool, so when our child's math needs grew beyond our math abilities, we used an online class and accompanying textbook. If our child's needs grow beyond our ability to provide explanations/clarifications even with textbook help, we will probably hire a tutor.
As far as education in general, we do not watch much television, and from the start, we generally tried to avoid any television or movies specifically marketed to children, mostly because we found them to be incredibly annoying and addictive -- and yeah, even at the risk of sounding like one of those old coots yelling, "You kids get off my lawn!" I was surprised at the nasty, eye-rolling attitude of a number of characters in children's shows and didn't want to endorse that attitude, even passively, by letting our child watch them. What was the use, when there were so many better things on?
Yes, we do read a great deal, and continued to read aloud (or have our child read to us) well after basic reading was mastered. We listen to audiobooks together as well -- often nonfiction meant for a general adult audience, which communicates a great deal of factual information and allows for in-depth discussion. Here too, we avoid a lot of the fiction specifically marketed for children, tweens, and teens, especially since much of it is written at the fourth- or fifth-grade reading level and has prose as dull as dishwater. Just suffice it to say that we're not big fans of sparkly vampires around here. Our child just got a Kindle and is delighted at the fact that there are tons of books in the public domain to read at the touch of a button -- and many of those books are NOT written at the fourth-grade level nor marketed to fifteen-year-olds.
Eh, I don't know...I know this makes me sound like Cranky Old Lawn Guy again, but I've just come to the conclusion as a parent that our culture force-feeds infantalization to our children. Probably the subject for another thread, though.
Interesting. How are their math skills so far?
And what types of discussions do you have with your kids?
Our kids go and ask their math teacher for help before or after school. They also have a couple friends that are math whizzes so they know they can ask them. They are strong math students to start so they don't need a lot of help but when they do, there are plenty of teachers at school available to help.
I'm just wondering how other people have gotten their kids to excel at math when they're not good at math themselves.
First and foremost, it is important to express an interest and enthusiasm in learning yourself. Try not to express your dislike for a subject (unless you say something like "oh yeah, math used to be really hard for me until..." or "I used to think history was boring until I realized...")
There are also various helpful resources online that can help with a variety of subjects.
As far as math goes, the websites Beestar.org (grades 1-8) and hs.beestar.org have free weekly math exercises that allow students to compete with others and see how their scores measure up. (Click on the "Set up Account" link on the left hand side of the page to register)
They also have other programs that aren't free (reading/writing, advanced math, vocab). I think they're around $30/semester?
Last edited by toobusytoday; 03-12-2013 at 05:19 PM..
Reason: removed solicitation, which is NOT allowed.
We also homeschool. My son is in 6th grade and for the first time, we're using the online program offered by our state to teach math. Up until now, we basically just let him learn by playing with numbers and using Miquon, which is heavy on mental math and reasoning, and not so much on rote memorization. Last year, I realized that he didn't know his multiplication tables, so we worked on that for a couple of months; now he's good. He's doing pretty well in the class; I think he has an 89 overall, but we go over things that he doesn't understand, even after he takes the test/quiz. When his class is above my ability, we'll go with a tutor.
My daughter is in 4th grade and is still mostly playing with numbers. She understands the four basic functions and hasn't yet memorized her multiplication tables, so that will be on the agenda probably next year. I'm also giving her a bit more instruction fractions than I gave her brother, because he's struggling a bit with understanding.
I think it's so, so, SO important for kids to under the concepts behind each mathematical function, and NOT to simply rely on formulas or "this is the way we do it." That's one reason I really liked the Miquon for the early years; it's more about conceptual understanding.
As far as TV and all the rest, my kids watch a moderate amount of TV. Most of what they watch is from the History Channel, Discovery, NatGeo, Food Network, etc. (They love Andrew Zimmern!) They also watch some of what I call "junk TV," like Spongebob or whatever. That's limited, though. We all read a good amount. They often choose non-fiction from the library. DD likes to read some "junk fiction," but since she was a late reader, I let her, to a point. I'd rather have her reading something she enjoys, even if it's not stellar literature. They have books assigned to them, too, though, just like they would if they were in school. Currently my son is reading The Cay and my daughter is reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. That's in addition to whatever they've chosen for themselves... DD has a book about different breeds of cats that she's reading as well as some silly Meg Cabot novel, and DS is totally immersed in the Skyrim strategy guide.
We're pretty child-led here, and it's worked out well so far. As they move toward high school, I think it will have to be less child-led, but I don't want them to feel like learning is a chore, so it's important to strike a balance.
Sometimes the "why" behind some concepts are complex and you don't learn that until later in Math.
The key in the early grades is foundation math, the operations and order of operations, fractions and decimals.
8th grade and up start getting into more abstract math.
I found in college the dots started to connect as we went into even deeper abstract math.
When it comes to exponents and square roots for example, kids are taught you can square -1 but cannot take the square root of -1. It's not until much later when you learn complex numbers that you CAN take the square root of -1 and get "i" (a + bi). But you can't learn the reason why until later in math.
You learn that complex numbers provide a solution for equations that have no "real" solutions.
And then, forever more, you will always answer "yes" to the question "Can you take the square root of -1 ?" even if the class hasn't learned complex numbers yet
No. Not always. If you can't tell me why and how , I'm not going to understand it. Simple. I have to be able to understand it before I can do it. Figure out a way to tell me why I am doing something and I can do it. Give me an example, tell me why I am doing each step, and I can do it? Otherwise, I am lost. I think most people who do not understand math have teachers who do not understand this concept. Here is the example, just do it, does not work for us. Give us step by step and how each step fits in with the other steps, and we can do the math. For example, addition and subtraction. If I had learned about the one's, ten, one hundreds, one, thousand's colums as I was learning to add and subtract, it would have been simple to learn the one's ten's and hundreds place. No, I had to learn one thing then learn to re think what I had already learned. Give me the information I need to figure it out and I can learn it. Give me this information then change it down the line and that just confuses me.
Please understand that I am not saying this to disagree with yuo, but to give you an insight to the fact that different people need different approaches to education.
No. Not always. If you can't tell me why and how , I'm not going to understand it. Simple. I have to be able to understand it before I can do it. Figure out a way to tell me why I am doing something and I can do it. Give me an example, tell me why I am doing each step, and I can do it? Otherwise, I am lost. I think most people who do not understand math have teachers who do not understand this concept. Here is the example, just do it, does not work for us. Give us step by step and how each step fits in with the other steps, and we can do the math. For example, addition and subtraction. If I had learned about the one's, ten, one hundreds, one, thousand's colums as I was learning to add and subtract, it would have been simple to learn the one's ten's and hundreds place. No, I had to learn one thing then learn to re think what I had already learned. Give me the information I need to figure it out and I can learn it. Give me this information then change it down the line and that just confuses me.
Please understand that I am not saying this to disagree with yuo, but to give you an insight to the fact that different people need different approaches to education.
Most K-5 teachers are general ed teachers. Only lately are they using specialized subject matter teachers and sending the kids off to "math class" with this teacher.
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Online Math Help
