What’s Up With Math?

In Russia, they call math “The Queen of all sciences”. [Математика – царица всех наук]

I guess it's not surprising that I put math very high on the importance scale of stuff I want our kids to learn well and be good at. 

The 1^st grader – I don’t worry too much about it. Yet. Whatever baby-math they are doing in school (the 1st grader complains it's too easy), we plan to supplement with some additional fun math stuff (whenever we’ll have some extra time… hasn’t happened yet...). 

The 5^th grader has some natural aptitude for math. She is in “accelerated” math – meaning when she was in 3^rd grade, she got to skip over most of the 3^rd-grade math and jump into 4^th grade math. I really don’t understand why the school does it – I mean, why force-crush ahead instead of providing more practice and giving challenging problem to kids who are good at math? It’s not like the (supposedly) 6^th grade math they are doing right now in 5^th grade is challenging or in-depth… they do super easy stuff, most of the time. It’s not geared for kids who like math or who are good at it. It’s geared for introducing the basics on topics covered in 6^th grade math curriculum in some US schools (and probably more like 4-5th grade elsewhere). Their teacher does provide tricky problems for kids on occasion, but, still… I feel like what they are learning is very surface-y. Like they never get the chance to fully internalize and practice the basics and before they get the chance to learn anything in depth, they hop to a new topic.

 

The 6^th grader has been doing great in his math quizzes and tests most of the year – which got me worried. He is also in accelerated math, although math was not his strongest subject at the elementary school level. For him, math was … not exactly a struggle, but there’ve been hiccups along the way. He has a tendency to make silly mistakes (because of not paying attention, or forgetting something super basic that they’ve covered months ago). So when, for months, he’s been getting perfect scores, I started to worry. I talked to another parent with a 6^th grader – she had similar concerns. Math has been easy – too easy. The kids barely have to do anything – and there’s no homework. They are learning – a bit – negative numbers, some algebraic concepts. But it’s an absolute minimum of learning. And it’s not sticking in my son’s head – he grasps new material very easily, but then forgets it all just as easily. Hence, the most recent algebra quiz – he didn’t do so great. He tells me he now understands things better, but when I ask him to add two negative numbers, or to divide a negative by a positive, he has to think a while, whereas these things, by now, should be totally second nature, like recognizing letters of the alphabet. And that’s pretty much all they’ve been doing this year.

I get it: this has been a super-challenging year. Some of the teachers and students have been struggling. It is very hard to teach both virtual and live students at the same time. I get it – let’s put the emotional well-being before all else.

But it shouldn’t mean that kids do NOTHING in math this whole year.

So… Intervention time.

Especially for the 6^th grader (he agrees).

Any recommendations for workbooks (I’d like to stay away from screens as much as possible since the kids are full-time virtual and spend hours on screen during school time)? Any printouts?