Will, my 3rd grader, is working through an Everyday Mathematics unit on reasoning and word problems.
Oh, the joy!
(You might recall how much I LOVE the Everyday Mathematics curriculum.)
This particular “Home Links” worksheet asked him to explain how he arrived at his answer. Check out the problem and his explanation of how he arrived at his answer:
Love it!
I allowed him to leave “help by my mom”, but I did go back (*sigh*) and make him write some additional blah, blah, blah about $12.00 for 2 packs of 5 cards vs. $12.90 for 10 individual cards.
WHATEVER!
How’s homework going in your house? If you don’t have homework yet, have I made you scared?
Rachel’s teacher doesn’t believe in giving homework on the weekends… I think because he also has a (drama queen) fifth grade daughter.
I heard there is a 4th grade teacher who doesn’t believe in homework at all. Part of me wanted to request him for next year. The reality, though, is that if Will didn’t have to do any homework in 4th grade then he would spend 5th-12th grades arguing that he shouldn’t have to do homework because he didn’t have to do it in 4th grade. That’s not an 8 year battle with my son I want to have!
I remember dealing with homework, back before we started homeschooling. Now I get to teach everything my way from the start, no more trying to figure out how to help him understand what the teacher told him.
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Yes, I can see the beauty of that! I’ve basically been teaching my son how to borrow the 1, because whatever way Everyday Mathematics tries to teach it is not sticking with him. Borrowing the 1 was good enough for me! And makes sense, too.
oh my gosh . . . LOVE his response! As a teacher (1st grade, not 3rd) , who has to teach Everyday Math I understand the purpose and the process that they are trying to help kids to experience and understand. I get why parents are frustrated with it! The first year I taught it, it was tricky. Just keep in mind that the purpose is to provide kids with multiple strategies and methods to arrive at the same answer along with building off of prior knowledge along with thinking about and talking about how they arrived at their conclusion. The explanation part helps on the standardized tests where they are expected to provide lengthy explanations. I’m not trying to push the curriculum one way or another just simply trying to provide an explanation for a method to the madness. I completely understand the frustration on your end. There are family letters that go along with each unit. Some teachers send them home and others don’t. If you get the family letter it goes over what will be taught in the upcoming lessons and gives the correct answers to the homelinks so you can go back and reference them if you’re stuck.
As for homework, my oldest is in Kindergarten. We do have homework and I am shocked to see what a struggle it is to get him to complete it! He is perfectly capable of doing the work, simply doesn’t want to do it! I am NOT looking forward to 3rd grade!
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Thanks for the reminder on the good part of Everyday Mathematics. I’m just whining. 🙂 We DO get the answer key. It’s just lost in a pile!
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This melts my heart – how cute
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