Unhappy with math teaching in early elementary

[Anonymous]

I have a first grader and really bothered by all this online math learning. I get no math papers back and basically blind at what they are doing in school. It sounds like they have math centers, which basically is playing math games on the computer. Little kids should not be on the computer this much. My kid can’t even write her numbers perfectly yet. This is how little they use paper and pencil for math.

[Anonymous]

I can’t speak for every school, but I teach second and I am pressured to have every kid get at least an hour a week of ST math.

[Anonymous]

You need to take responsibility for your own child’s education. It’s really annoying, but you can’t count on the school, now or in the future. Get workbooks and do 15 minutes together every day in math and if you can, other subjects too.

[Anonymous]

This may be school by school. I get *tons* of math worksheets home, and the math centers are all manipulative based - no computer. I believe they each do a brief session of ST Math twice a week - that's it.

[Anonymous]

it's abysmal ... No textbook, no standardization on homework. My kid was thrown worksheets made up by a homeschool mom found on TpT

[Anonymous]

Hm, must be your school, I get dozens of worksheets every week for mine.

[Anonymous]

Mathusee.com


Don’t be fool enough to rely on government school for your child’s foundation.

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t get better. Math education in FCPS is on the parent.

[Anonymous]

I am a teacher and don’t like the math either. My older kid was fine with no homework and no papers, so I didn’t do anything. The younger one needs help. In first, I concentrated on math facts add and subtract to 20. In second, I bought and IXL workbook and we followed along with whatever the teacher said they were working on in the newsletter.
In third and fourth grade, I used the IXL workbooks, but I also SOL study guides and downloaded them. We would still follow along in the workbook, but then a couple of days before the test, I would print out the SOL pages that matched what they were working on. It has worked well so far and if I skip the homework, my kid doesn’t do as well.

I’m sure spectrum math or any other workbook would be fine. I just made sure it was aligned with common core as VA standards are just slightly different.

I agree that math sucks in elementary. They also mix up logic and doing math and then don’t understand why young kids may be doing things wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t get better. Math education in FCPS is on the parent.

I think this is a school by school thing. All of my kids have had solid math teachers but I have friends with different experiences.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, if your child is going to do well in FCPS, a lot of their education falls on you. You need to reinforce what they are learning (even if you have to educate yourself in what they are doing at the same time) at home, either after school or dinner, whatever works for your family. If you want pencil to paper you will have to do that on your own. The push for the online programs is real and schools are now graded/evaluated on them.

Children being tutored has sadly become the norm.

[Anonymous]

Everyone we know is disappointed with FCPS math. It’s quite awful.

[Anonymous]

Definitely school-by-school but also agree with PP on IXL workbooks. The online program is also great and you can get the VA curriculum by grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to take responsibility for your own child’s education. It’s really annoying, but you can’t count on the school, now or in the future. Get workbooks and do 15 minutes together every day in math and if you can, other subjects too.

This is the way.

[Anonymous]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" but they fixed it and now it's really broken.