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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am an immigrant and Asian, I rolled my eyes to those immigrant Asian acquaintances who sent their children to "tutoring". But, not anymore.

When my child was in 3rd grade AAP class, I spent sometime to understand what was going on in the classroom, and had a sudden realization that the school work is not enough. My kid naturally is good with math, but his work is messy and written all over the place. Actually he rarely wrote anything done since it was not required in school and he could do those questions in his head. You could say that he is smart but I know this habit will only create big troubles when he is at higher grades. (I teach science in college and have seen plenty of students.) I honestly do not understand why we do not use textbook in FCPS. Students need to see organized and consistent examples of problem solving - not random worksheets from different resources, they need to know how to read by highlighting and taking notes on the books directly...  Well, my child is now going to "tutoring" so he can have a textbook and associated homework, and can learn things in a structured way.
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I'm an immigrant and Asian and my AAP kids don't get formal tutoring- YET. The one in third grade is learning Pre-algebra and the one in fourth grade is learning Algebra. They are working on some kind math competition in the school and there is a very tight sense of community. My kid don't appear to struggle, but they do seem to enjoy the competitiveness that the program is starting now.

I don't think textbooks (Kumon or Mathnasium) are absolutely necessary. FCPS provides prodigy for us at home and we work with novel math problems (we work on identifying patterns). I think it's more of seeing the beauty of math in the patterns and repitition that truly helps kids at this stage. This being said: my fourth grader loves the Everything You Need to Ace Math in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete Middle School Study Guide (Big Fat Notebooks) and I use games from Math with Bad Drawings. But in general, at this age, I feel like tutoring is silly. Maybe in 7th and 8th grade we will re-address it.[/quote]

What book/website etc are you using for the pattern identification problems? Thank you[/quote]

PP here.

The Everything Math book listed above: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-You-Need-Math-Notebook/dp/0761160965/ref=asc_df_0761160965/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312089887152&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15650503756624360425&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008130&hvtargid=pla-422986923983&psc=1

And Math with Bad Drawings:https://www.amazon.com/Math-Bad-Drawings-Illuminating-Reality/dp/0316509035/ref=sr_1_2?crid=165BWX2BY0OOW&keywords=math+with+bad+drawings&qid=1579152572&s=books&sprefix=math+with+%2Cstripbooks%2C145&sr=1-2

We do pattern identification by simple x-y graphs, number lines, exponents vs. multiplication vs. addition. I don't teach math as a profession: I just teach it to my kids the way I think of math. We sit on a sofa and we look at patterns and talk about numbers. In car rides we do multiplication and division problems and simple pre-aglebra while I drive. Geometry will be fun, I'm planning a lesson on how calculus explains geometry and physics (no problems, just basics of circles.) If you can't do this as a parent, youtube can.

I find it fun. But it's also completely nurturing: no worksheets no pressure. Just hey: isn't this cool?

I don't do workbooks: they get a lot of repitition in school as is, but also, they don't really respond to it well. Last night we went through cubes and cube routes before going to bed and we did it in terms of looking at their legos and blocks.

But patterns help kids with math more than math tutoring. Because they can connect patterns. And patterns are things that are easily remembered.

As for Prodigy: ask your kid about it. I know our school uses it as well as many others as a reward. They also use AoPS in our school as well as other things.  You can download the app and have them play at home.

Thank you
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