Thursday, July 31, 2008

Flip Flip on Math...Again

I know there's an old post from the spring where I say that I think I'm going to make up my own math program this year for Catherine out of the resources we already had. Well no. We're going with Singapore Math 5A and Life of Fred Fractions, Life of Fred Decimals and daily drills (for Catherine, those are the icing on the cake. Weird child). that's because I forgot two important factors: my enthusiasm for buying curriculum and Catherine.

With the Singapore Math I had the 5B student text hanging around from a used curriculum purchase. I kept looking at it and questioning my ability to put something together myself. Besides, wouldn't one structured program be the most comprehensive choice? I mean I could miss something important. OMG, I will miss something important! If she doesn't have some official curriculum thingee she'll be a math idiot! OMG, where's the credit card? WHERE IS THE CREDIT CARD?

I panicked. I hunted down the one Canadian supplier that has the old non-US Primary Math books and now have the complete set for grade 5. Bright side? I think I'll go with the panic plan after all because after flipping through 5A I'm astonished to see that it looks like it will be mostly stuff Catherine is familiar with. And 5B is a lot of geometry. Catherine approves. Her comment when I asked her to flip through the books was, "Looks fun."

The second part of the curriculum was Catherine's request. Life of Fred is a strange curriculum that explains concepts through stories about a five year old boy named Fred. I started looking at it because explaining concepts is where I fall on my face a lot. Sometimes it's because I don't know myself but more often it's related to the hard time I have expressing myself verbally. I stumble, stutter, backtrack...Catherine usually ends up more confused then she began. LOF takes me out of the picture completely. Catherine tried it and isn't simply happy about LOF but is eager for it to arrive so she can get started.

So that's the plan. Since inconsistency is my downfall I am really going to work at committing to both of these programs and the daily drills and not let frustration, boredom or distraction pull us away from them. For a few months at least.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well at least you'll have a wide assortment of stuff to flip flop through when she wearies of this one :-p

I did a blog entry btw, you shamed me into it. First one in almost ten months.

http://dalailori.blogspot.com

kitten said...

Everybody seems to have their school year planned, but me. I need a week just to plan, heck I will take a few days. I really need to sit down with my mom and make a schedule that I can work out to get her took care of and our home school worked in.
Now!, I'm pushing the panic button!

Dawn said...

"But I wanted to BUY *something*!"

Exactly!!! Because you know, when you have to spend money on it it's really ever so much more effective. :D

Lorraine - One post isn't enough. :D Seriously, you could just post those links you keep finding and have an excellent blog!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes it's because I don't know myself but more often it's related to the hard time I have expressing myself verbally. I stumble, stutter, backtrack...

How refreshing to hear that I'm not the only one! It can be tiring to walk through the steps of ev-er-y-thing; it doesn't come naturally to me. :S

Ruth in NC said...

One thing about Fred - it's never boring. And rarely confusing. I hope you like it. And I hope my 12yo likes it too. His older sister does.

Ruth