Math for a k/1st grader
For my 5 year old, she’s doing first grade level math. I was creating my own math schedule for her and when it came to a few issues I had with what to teach when and how, I decided to scope out an actual math curriculum for her to put my mind at ease. She was counting by 5’s and 10’s, counting change, could count to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, 10’s and began telling time but I began wondering if I was teaching things in a way that would make sense when we got to bigger coins, dollar amounts, etc. I didn’t want to hop around and backtrack, and didn’t feel I had a very concrete path to follow
For math, I chose to purchase the Saxon 1 Teachers Guide. I have found the worksheets super easy to duplicate myself based off the teachers guide (Which has pictures of the worksheets for each lesson and answers written in). I usually hand write the lessons on a piece of stationary or scrap paper and my daughter fills them in. I also find the worksheets incredibly repetitive, which could be a good thing if most of this wasn’t review for her so I combine both of the days worksheets into one and omit the basic stuff she already knows to prevent boredom. I chose to start the book from the beginning, rather than try to find where she’d fit in, because there are a lot of concepts explained differently and some things I felt she needed to review on, so instead of skipping it all we’re starting from the beginning and moving forward that way. Plus I find the book is set up like a stepping-stone path to the more advanced stuff and I feel more comfortable going lesson by lesson so she can understand the basic concepts, the way the book describes them, so she can connect more easily with the advanced stuff later in the book.
I enjoy that the curriculum is set up with a script, so that I can explain things more clearly if I need help with a concept. I also enjoy that it hits on a variety of skills too - calendar reading and weather graphing are daily encounters and the book also brings in fun objects - like blocks (I use blocks instead of purchasing the stacking towers, balls instead of apples, etc. and will improvise other teaching aids as needed), stuffed animals and more fun stuff.
I’ll likely stay with Saxon because I can see it working well with my son when he is ready for it, and I plan on purchasing teachers editions for each grade except for Kindergarten as I hear it’s very basic and we have plenty of very basic resources. Maybe I can continue to recreate the worksheets on my own instead of purchasing a new workbook for each child (probably recreate them easily on the computer too and save the files so I can reuse them on each child), and teach out of teachers guides exclusively. I enjoy having a script available to help me explain concepts!
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June 24th, 2010 at 12:48 am
[...] as there is a miniature picture of each worksheet, master and assessment. I talk about this more here. I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to re-create each page on the computer so I could print [...]