Manipulatives are indeed useful, briefly, at the very beginning of math to teach the ideas of addition and subtraction. I learned the concept of 2 + 5 = 7 and of 7 - 3 = 4 by manipulating Unifix Number Cubes (staples.com has them; good for preschool and K students).

Once the student understands that basic concept, s/he really just needs lots of practice to memorize those basic math facts. In my day, the practice phase used printed daily worksheets.

Again, manipulatives can be useful for the very early stages of multiplication (2 x 3 = 6) so the student can learn the concept. Then they just need lots of practice memorize the times table from (1 x 1) to (10 x 10). Again, worksheets daily is a good approach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

In the younger grades my kids did a lot of centers with math games. Some had kids spin a dial to learn probability, others had kids poll classmates to make a bar graph, or others had them use the base 10 blocks that stack together to make equations.
They were all supposed to be hands on and build number sense. Teachers considered these activities to be superior or worksheets or iPads. Kids mostly did the envision worksheets with subs.

Funny, though, research shows that worksheets are so much better than centers and math games for learning the basics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

There is a very popular idea that kids learn better if they have tangible things in their hands to count and manipulate, vs. worksheets. I'm not an educator so can't say much more than that, but there has definitely been a significant trend away from worksheets as a tool for teaching concepts.

This isn't even new. My 5th grader was taught math this way in K and 1st. Almost no worksheets. All stations. Then the pandemic hit so I can't comment on 2nd.

I didn't mean to imply it was new. It came up in the decades between when I was in ES and when my kids started ES.

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

OP. Other worksheets came home so I can see they were doing paper work. I was shocked to get a brand new math workbook with nothing used. And seemed like a lot of overlap with worksheets I did see throughout the year. Very surprising.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

There is a very popular idea that kids learn better if they have tangible things in their hands to count and manipulate, vs. worksheets. I'm not an educator so can't say much more than that, but there has definitely been a significant trend away from worksheets as a tool for teaching concepts.

This isn't even new. My 5th grader was taught math this way in K and 1st. Almost no worksheets. All stations. Then the pandemic hit so I can't comment on 2nd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

There is a very popular idea that kids learn better if they have tangible things in their hands to count and manipulate, vs. worksheets. I'm not an educator so can't say much more than that, but there has definitely been a significant trend away from worksheets as a tool for teaching concepts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

In the younger grades my kids did a lot of centers with math games. Some had kids spin a dial to learn probability, others had kids poll classmates to make a bar graph, or others had them use the base 10 blocks that stack together to make equations.
They were all supposed to be hands on and build number sense. Teachers considered these activities to be superior or worksheets or iPads. Kids mostly did the envision worksheets with subs.

Not sure what school your son goes to. But basically APS adopted a new curriculum two years ago. According to my daughter’s teacher, the curriculum was terrible so the school decided to not use it. This is at ATS.

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

What curriculum was used instead?

At our school, the envision workbooks were optional assignments. They had other worksheets/curriculum in class for math.

The way i understand it is that the curriculum APS purchases comes with so much material the teachers can’t realistically use it all. Rather than throw it out, teachers send it home in case you want to use it at home.

Which school? The envision book?

Wow which school barely uses the iPad? My first grader uses his iPad so much at school.

My APS 1st grader brought home the math book and not a single sheet was done. This happened last year too. Anyone know why teachers aren’t using these new books at all?

This isn’t an iPad issue because his class barely uses the iPad.