Is there a downside to doing a little bit of supplementing at home? (mostly math question)

[Anonymous]

I've got a kid who loves math and chooses to supplement at home. We have some math workbooks that are available just the same as coloring books and other activity options. We play a lot of math games at the dinner table (talking about numbers, asking each other math questions, asking questions about how you would solve a number related problem, estimation problems, etc), there are plenty of board games that involve math (some expressly educational and some implicitly so), there are also many math related books (math career biographies, math content books, fun math related books).
I would add that understanding the why and how to think through the right approach is really important. And as the math becomes more automatic can be harder to remember. So I would make sure that the number sense related pieces are brought up regularly. As teachers generally want to be able to "see the work" at this age because its so important.
There also great books about math pedagogy (both geared toward teachers, but also some great ones written for a broader audience - I'll have to go back and look at some of the recent ones I've read).
It's also worth noting that we are generally a math and number loving household, so its a very natural extension to be talking math and numbers.
Oh one last thing, when we talk math and numbers, one of my favorite follow ups is "how else could you figure that out" (for example if you're talking about how many squares on a chess board - could identify all of the ways you could find out: count them, count the ranks and the files and multiply, notice they have the same number of dark and light and count just the darks and double, guess, etc. And then you can also talk about whether each method would always work or cases where they wouldn't )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Education is a great way to spend time; an investment in the future of the family and society. It's sad that society has reached a point where OP is afraid of giving their kid a healthy upbringing.

This, and especially in an area such as Math, where the PISA results consistently show poor performance by schools in the USA. Teaching or supplementing math at home is a practical necessity with the current state of US schooling. I wish it were not so.

Further, doing this does not preclude doing other kids of enrichment - arts, music, theatre, museums, and so forth. It is not an either/or situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Education is a great way to spend time; an investment in the future of the family and society. It's sad that society has reached a point where OP is afraid of giving their kid a healthy upbringing.

This, and especially in an area such as Math, where the PISA results consistently show poor performance by schools in the USA. Teaching or supplementing math at home is a practical necessity with the current state of US schooling. I wish it were not so.

Further, doing this does not preclude doing other kids of enrichment - arts, music, theatre, museums, and so forth. It is not an either/or situation.

Your job is to teach them how to live not jam as much information as possible in their heads.