Reply to Is your principal allowing math acceleration and grouping?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that they could improve math by removing some of their arbitrary ceilings. In Montessori, preschoolers and kindergarteners do multiplication not because its advanced but because added one number to itself multiple times naturally relates to coating and skip counting. Its a natural connection to addition and simply understanding sets. They don't ask kids to memorize multiplication tables or even over ally focus on the computation aspect it really is about the concept. This takes the mystery out of math and gives kids the ability to start recognizing patterns and order of operations. MCPS seems to think that this is a concept not allowable until the 3rd grade or perhaps in very simple limited ways at the end of 2nd.

They also should do simple things like add more digits and place values to concepts that they are teaching. Once a child can do double digit addition, there is no reason not to add other place values. The concept is the same and there is value in showing kids that its no big deal to add more numbers. This also helps with kids who do mental calculations easily and don't give a hoot about the multiple strategies for a problem so easy they do it in their heads anyway.

In first grade, there is no reason why they couldn't introduce perimeter or concepts of height/depth/width. My K knows this stuff already and it would make the lessons more interesting than just stopping at naming the shapes and identifying 3 basic properties.

There are many things that they could do to improve the math curriculum but they need to care. I don't think MCPS cares about math. [/quote]

I agree with you on everything except the last sentence. I think they care. The problem is that most teachers were not good at math themselves and therefore think this stuff is hard. I think they need to treat math as a specialty and pay to have smarter people to teach math.[/quote]

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