My 2nd grader is teaching herself multiplication. she started over break and believe me, would never have TOUCHED it had I suggested she do it!

But I laugh at the premise: there is no math homework at our school! They send home a weekly sheet (that is identical to the sheet they've sent all year), but it is optional. My kid adds numbers in her head while she eats her snack on Mondays, checks off her two boxes and that it is. Useless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying that again without the Swype typos:

I dunno, but I was surprised when my first grader tested at end of fourth grade level for math in standardized testing.

Are you saying your first grader knows multiplication/division/fractions/decimals? Did he/she learn that stuff up on his/her own?

The reason I'm asking is my child is in second grade and dying to start studying multiplication (don't ask me why!) but, according to the curriculum,
multiplication/division are taught in third grade, and no sooner. DD is advanced in math, so I'm pretty sure she could grasp the idea but MCPS thinks
she's too young so she's stuck in class adding double-digit numbers again and again. I enrich at home a bit, but mostly puzzle/logic type stuff.

That's why I find the idea of a first grader testing at the fourth grade level pretty fascinating. PP, you've got a genius on your hands!

Why wouldn't you get a few workbooks and teach her? We got some multiplication workbooks for our 2nd grader and he's working on them now. He wanted to learn, so why not. Our classroom is still doing single and very simple double digit. They barely spend time on math.

Our math curriculum doesn't start differentiating until third grade. Before then, all kids follow the same curriculum. Advanced math is just not offered in K-2.

Our DD loves math and was eager for more in the K-2 years, so he teachers gave the ok to skip around/ahead on IXL. We let her follow her curiosity and she tried and learned all sorts of interesting math via IXL. She also liked logic problems -- we found good ones in the Math Perplexors workbooks and in this one, too: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0866514406/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

In third grade, the school starts offering accelerated math, which literally follows the curriculum for the grade level ahead. By sixth grade, there's an option for double-accelerated -- 6th graders in a math class with 8th graders -- and that continues all the way up until they're stretching deep into Calculus and beyond. Only a handful of kids seem to qualify for the uber-advanced classes each year, but there's apparently no limit. The school will accommodate as many as can test in and keep up.

I guess my kid is the LCD, because she is struggling and we had to get her a tutor to help her keep up. She does fine in all other subjects, but math is hard for her - as it was for me.

Our school doesn't even assign work sheets anymore. They expect the kids to play on their assigned ipads for 20 minutes of computer math. I know my kid and his friend is bored in math. We just try to talk about math and do random problems throughout the day, but wished the did more than what they're being taught now.

We supplement. Basically, I expect that on weeknight DD will have a certain amount of homework. If she does not have school work and/or completes her schoolwork very quickly, we supplement with Mama Work. This might be worksheets from a math workbook, it might be testing her on more advanced sightwords, spelling words, vocabulary, etc. It might be getting out a map and practicing some geography. Math tends to be my default because it is the easiest one for me to just assign rather than have to help with. We also read every night and don't count that as homework.

The teacher even acknowledged that its easy at this point. We have supplemented but that's been mostly for the summer -- I think the purpose of homework in elementary school is just to get in the habit rather than be challenging.

Anonymous wrote:Trying that again without the Swype typos:

I dunno, but I was surprised when my first grader tested at end of fourth grade level for math in standardized testing.

Are you saying your first grader knows multiplication/division/fractions/decimals? Did he/she learn that stuff up on his/her own?

The reason I'm asking is my child is in second grade and dying to start studying multiplication (don't ask me why!) but, according to the curriculum,
multiplication/division are taught in third grade, and no sooner. DD is advanced in math, so I'm pretty sure she could grasp the idea but MCPS thinks
she's too young so she's stuck in class adding double-digit numbers again and again. I enrich at home a bit, but mostly puzzle/logic type stuff.

That's why I find the idea of a first grader testing at the fourth grade level pretty fascinating. PP, you've got a genius on your hands!