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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The “US is terrible at teaching math” is just an excuse, one of a few I’ve heard, to spend money and make your 6yo sit and do extra math two nights a week.

I’ve lived in other countries. My kids have gone to their schools. It’s all the same. FWIW people in those other countries send their kids to kumon too. [/quote]

I don't think the US is terrible.  I think FCPS is terrible, largely because they don't have a curriculum or textbook.  [b]The classes look to me like the teacher is downloading worksheets from the internet, cobbling together a curriculum the best she can,[/b] and using time fillers as stations otherwise.  I also don't think the centers model is beneficial to anyone after maybe 2nd grade.

The classes I had back in the 1980s in flyover country were much more rigorous and demanding than what I'm seeing in FCPS AAP.  [/quote]

This is true for DC's class. They have a spiral notebook for math and the first few minutes of every class are spent cutting a worksheet down to size to fit on the notebook paper and gluing it in. They get about 10 mins of direct instruction while they're sitting on a carpet, and some of that time is spent getting everyone to find a spot, be quiet, and listen. They then go back to their tables (they don't have desks) to work on their worksheet. I haven't been able to figure out where the centers come in to play in this chain of events but I know they do them because DD complains kids just mess around. This is 4th grade.

She was previously in Catholic school but the social situation was tough for her/us, it was expensive, and I drank the kool-aid that math and science are so much better in public. She was rejected from AAP this year with all of her scores in the high 120s so we do Mathnasium to ensure she's actually getting an education. The irony is that monthly fees for Mathnasium cost about 50% of her entire Catholic school tuition but that's life. [/quote]

Op here. This is my concern. There is no textbook. Teacher groups kids by ability. 3rd grade DS apparently Is in the lowest group who doesn’t already know the material. They do small groups. [b]There is this math prodigy computer program[/b] that they do in class. [/quote]

OP, I feel obligated to warn you about Prodigy, especially since there are multiple posts here that suggest Prodigy is good/useful for kids. Last year I heard of this program when browsing online and out of curiosity I decided to try a free 7 day trial, since I love both math and video games. I played about 3 days for multiple hours trying to shake out all the features. The program is > 95% game, and < 5% math, and I'm being really generous here. [b]Everything about it[/b] has been (predatorily?) designed to get kids to playing the game and NOT doing math. There are countless advertisements asking to pay a monthly fee for "upgrades", etc. They give free items, then ask for money. These are exactly the same marketing tactics that draws kids in to many of the stupid games found on phones these days (and which lead kids to ask parents to pay money for in item games, etc). The game play is boring and the math is very basic and not interesting at all. Their algorithm is supposed to be adaptive, yet the hardest problems I encountered were simple concepts such as graphing points on a coordinate grid (which according to them is aimed at middle school levels, the highest level Prodigy goes to in 8th grade). I did hundreds of questions in my 3 day "binge" and was able to do every single problem without pencil and paper (save a few only because the numbers required a calculator). They were that basic and simple one step exercises. At the end I finally realized that I had wasted my time and there was nothing more to this game (I cannot call it remotely close to a math program, it is a game with math questions added in as an afterthought). The name Prodigy is also ridiculous, because I found no creative math, nor even anything that would be considered above level.

I would not recommend any kid older than 3rd grade play this for fear of addiction (to the game, not the math). I would maybe consider letting my 2nd grader play it as a fun activity at home (in lieu of other video games), if it wasn't for the addictive design that tries to get consumers to buy items and spend money, which is really a terrible thing. But the fact that our schools paid money for it and are letting kids do it there? It definitely makes me angry and I think that decision is extremely irresponsible.

On a lighter note, I've been thinking about gamification for math and while I don't know of anything great from a modern gameplay point of view, I have found a version of the old classic Number Munchers game in the browser. While it would only be useful for elementary school kids, it's actually amazing at what it's trying to do, which is to build up quick thinking calculation skills in addition/subtraction/division/multiplication/primes/number inequalities. It is almost 100% math mixed with edge of your seat game excitement (in a similar style to PacMan, you're trying to get away from the monsters on the screen that are chasing you, while you calculate and "munch" boxes that satisfy the given criteria). The high scores and Hall of fame can also make it competitive for kids to try to do better all while actually developing some gaming skill of avoiding monsters). I still have memories of eagerly waiting for my 15-20 minutes in the computer lab to play number munchers in the 90s... I'm sure some of us here will remember a similar experience. Anyway enjoy:

[url]https://classicreload.com/number-munchers.html[/url][/quote]

Thank you sooooo much for sharing this![/quote]

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