Thoughts on Eureka Math ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too many expectations that teachers have tons of materials. We have already spent more money on it than I would like to. No, I don't have craft beads sitting around to make these counting bracelets. I've been to Michael's twice already for this stuff and we don't get reimbursed.

I'm so sorry that MCPS is not giving you the materials you need. This is ridiculous. Is your PTA/room parent system not helpful for that? (I know in many schools they are not.) Another very random idea is to reach out to your local Girl Scout Service Unit. Many Girl Scout troop leaders find that, at some point when their girls get older, they have a ton of extra craft supplies sitting around, including things like craft beads. We usually just pass it down to a younger troop, but I bet there are troops that would be happy to give them to a local school. In fact, this would be a great activity for a Girl Scout bronze or silver award -- to set up a donation system like that, and make the bracelets for you.

[Anonymous]

I like that the units and topics are more integrated with each other than they were in 2.0. My second grader started with a particular method of addition/subtraction at the beginning of the year. When they moved on to measurement, they are still doing addition and subtraction using the method from the 1st unit, but now they are measuring things and using the addition and subtraction to say which item is longer and by how much, etc.

In 2.0 it seemed like every time they switched topics (like to measurement or to geometry) whatever they had just finished doing was not mentioned at all until they came back around to that concept the next time. It was very disjointed and didn't build on itself and reinforce the prior concept by still using it while also learning the next concept. Eureka seems to do this better (so far).

And I also like the explanation page that comes with the homework. It seems like a reasonable substitute for a textbook and if you want you can collect it into a reference packet/notebook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many expectations that teachers have tons of materials. We have already spent more money on it than I would like to. No, I don't have craft beads sitting around to make these counting bracelets. I've been to Michael's twice already for this stuff and we don't get reimbursed.

I'm so sorry that MCPS is not giving you the materials you need. This is ridiculous. Is your PTA/room parent system not helpful for that? (I know in many schools they are not.) Another very random idea is to reach out to your local Girl Scout Service Unit. Many Girl Scout troop leaders find that, at some point when their girls get older, they have a ton of extra craft supplies sitting around, including things like craft beads. We usually just pass it down to a younger troop, but I bet there are troops that would be happy to give them to a local school. In fact, this would be a great activity for a Girl Scout bronze or silver award -- to set up a donation system like that, and make the bracelets for you.

I teach in Baltimore City and we don't even have a PTA at my school.