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Kitchen > PrivateWebHome > WebLog > SummerSupplementTimePart5

summer supplement time, part 5

In SummerSupplementTimePart4 I mentioned that I think I have useful advice for 3 groups of kids:

  • kids who, for whatever reason, have fallen significantly behind their classmates

  • kids who are right on track, doing well, and you want to keep their math skills in shape over the summer

  • kids whose parents want to accelerate their math learning -- in particular, to get them in position to take and master algebra in the 8th grade


My own strategy for kids who have falllen behind (Christopher's situation last summer) is in that post.

But please! Everyone! Chime in.

These are the ideas I've come up with working with one child, and talking to a group of 4 people (Carolyn, Ed, my neighbor & friend Laura, and my friend Debbie), with as many on-the-fly advice sessions as I could get with Christopher's teachers thrown into the mix.

One of the main reasons I wanted to do a bliki with Carolyn was to find out what other people are doing!

avoiding summer regression

For kids who are doing fine, here are my thoughts.

Assuming the research I've found (pdf file) is to be trusted (it makes sense to me, for what it's worth) there are two points to bear in mind:

  • summer loss equals about one month of a child's learned skills and knowledge from the previous school year

  • summer vacation is more detrimental for math than for reading, and most detrimental for math computation and spelling


I find the math-versus-reading factoid ironic given that schools universally hand out summer reading lists, not summer math lists.

So here's my own stab at a summer maths list. (I think the British plural works for this.)


summer maths list

  • 'mad minute' worksheets daily (be sure to include fractions, decimals & percents if your child has gotten that far)

  • a word problem or two each day, if you feel ambitious (Carolyn is posting problems from the Singapore series)

  • a Math Olympiads word problem each day, if you feel really ambitious (I'll probably post some of these)


books (worksheets)

I did a quick scan of the various 'Mad Minute' books on Amazon, and folks seem to like this one best:

The Mad Minute covers Grades 1 through 8, and includes fractions & percents.

If any of our teachers or parents have used this book, let us know.

  • Saxon Math Tests and Worksheet Booklets for each grade level. 120 'fast fact' worksheets to be completed in under 5 minutes. These are the worksheets that finally got Christopher up to speed, and we're doing them again this summer. Cost for the Tests & Worksheets book alone is around $20, probably less at the Homeschool Super Center. If you're just going to use the worksheets you don't need to buy the textbook or the solution manual.



books (story problems)

  • Singapore Math Challenging Word Problems series. These are terrific books. Almost 300 story problems in each, grouped according to subject area (e.g. measurement, time, multiplication-and-division, etc.) All problems are multi-step, & all answers are in the back. $7.80 plus shipping.

caution: your child almost certainly needs to use a book 1 or 2 grades younger than the one he's in. So you might want to have your child take the placement test before ordering.

  • Math Olympiad problems -- you can find Math Olympiad books all over the place. They're expensive, so try to rustle up a used copy.

  • Math League Contest Books from Math League. Wayne Wickelgren strongly recommends these books for everything from building your child's math achievement to preparing for SAT's. I love them, too. Filled with the kinds of problems, including logical reasoning, children are going to need throughout their lives & much more 'sensible' than the showy problems from Math Olympiads. Each book spans 3 grades, and all answers are in back. $12.95 a book plus shipping.



worksheets



virtual worksheets & problem-solving

I've mentioned that I'm leery of online learning, but you can't beat it for convenience and speed. I like Saxon's offerings:

  • Saxon Math 'fast facts' generator The page is clean, simple, and visually compelling. You decide which math-fact problems you want to do, how difficult the problems should be, and how many to do in one set. You can choose between a timed & untimed option. That's great, because kids love seeing their times get faster.

  • Check out 5th grade activities.
    Saxon now has online exercises for each grade. They tell you which activities to do after which lessons in the book, and you can download the activities for use when you are not online.

  • Saxon has lots, lots more, so take a look

  • Batter's Up Baseball Game I can't find the 'addition facts baseball games' the kids at school love so much, so here's another one. Christopher told me just now that he loved playing online 'addition baseball' when he was in 2nd grade.

I found it!

The kids at school were crazy about Funbrain, especially math baseball.

update: reader recommendation

Also check out Singapore math's Intensive Practice books. These books cover all sorts of fun things including word problems, computation, puzzles and patterns etc... They are not joking when they call it intensive. Some problems are extremely difficult (and some are quite easy too) and we cover them orally and together with the view that exposure to these types of problems will only expand abilities!

I agree. I have two of these books, and they're terrific. [Catherine]


FreeWorksheets
TreadingWater

SummerSupplement
SummerSupplementTime
SummerSupplementTimePart2
SummerSupplementTimePart3
SummerSupplementTimePart4 (resources for kids who have fallen behind)

SaxonPlacementTestsAndGuides
SingaporeMathPlacementTest

and:




Summer Supplement Time
linking decline in high school scores to elementary school
research on summer regression
the time costs of not teaching to mastery
U.S. fourth graders not doing as well as thought
Phase 4 topic list, grade 6 class
comments thread on pre-algebra as algebra



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Also check out Singapore math's "Intensive Practice" books. These books cover all sorts of fun things including word problems, computation, puzzles and patterns etc... They are not joking when they call it intensive. Some problems are extremely difficult(and some are quite easy too) and we cover them orally and together with the view that exposure to these types of problems will only expand abilities!

-- KtmGuest - 28 Jun 2005

Yup--I love the intensive practice books.

That reminds me, I should have looked at them before I wrote this.

I'll pull your comment up front.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jun 2005

I'll second that referral to the Intensive Practice books. The character of the problems (not the word problems) changes as you go from the Singapore Textbook to the Workbook to the Intensive Practice book. And then the Challenging Problems book is similar in character to the Word Problems found in the Intensive Practice book. The Workbook is easier and a bit more colorful and fun, than either the Textbook or the Intensive Practice book.

-- BeckyC - 30 Jun 2006

I'm using the Mad Minute book. My dd stresses out over timed tests, so I've instituted a reward system for it: 25 pts. in one day = a stick of gum; 75 pts. in one week = a sheet of 10 stickers; 100 pts. in one week = a DVD.

I tried using the book earlier in the school year, but she wasn't ready for it -- not fluent enough with her math facts, and that only added to her stress level. I spent the rest of the year giving untimed worksheets and Kumon workbook pages -- *with cheat sheets.*

I finally got it into my head that if I want her to know the answers, she'll learn them much more quickly if she can refer to them as needed. REMOVE THE MYSTERY.

It also helped that she learned multi-digit addition and subtraction this year, which forced her to practice those facts in the pursuit of solving a more complex problem.

-- BrendaM - 01 Jul 2006

she'll learn them much more quickly if she can refer to them as needed. REMOVE THE MYSTERY

I think so, too. My youngest is in the process of memorizing his basic facts within ten. He's right on the fence about it. Which means that whether he's doing a worksheet or playing a card game, he insists he wants to have a ruler (a number line) at hand, and yet he is finding it very slow going to refer to the number line to answer e.g. the question 9 - 2 = ? and he is answering more and more of these questions from memory. It's a beautiful thing to see him take ownership of the facts.

It reminds me very much of what happened midway through his learning to read last summer, when he was confronted with the word "what".

It was very daunting to him. He needed to remember both 1. how "wh" sounds, and 2. that the "a" is neither short nor long. It was a real bump in the road. He got cold feet about this whole reading business, to think that books are filled with tricky words like "what".

The word "said" was equally discouraging.

But time healed all wounds, and a couple of weeks later, he was back on track.

I've instituted a reward system

Math is definitely not like reading -- there's no obvious reward. We don't have any mathematical comic books lying around the house whose jokes can only be understood after you've mastered your basic math facts. With reading, there's an obvious reward: decoding the delightful dialogue in, say, all of the Calvin and Hobbes books that are lying around the house.

-- BeckyC - 01 Jul 2006

I'm going to have to take a look at my Intensive Practice books. I've barely even opened them.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jul 2006

The Mad Minute book sounds fantastic, but it's so expensive I've avoided ordering it....

We're past that point, I think. (I hope!)

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jul 2006

WebLogForm
Title: summer supplement time, part 5
TopicType: WebLog
SubjectArea: AboutCurricula, HomeSchooling, ParentsTeachingKids
LogDate: 200506270936

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