Dear Summer,
Don't give up. It takes time to learn but it is so worth the effort. Are you using the abacus when you ask your daughter to visualize six and seven? If she enters the five as a group and then adds one more bead she should be able to "see" the quantity six. Can she do that? If not practice singing the "Yellow is the sun" as she actually enters the numbers.

Another idea is using the rhyme: "One, two, buckle my shoe" as she enters the quantities. I also have seen teachers say the rhyme "There were ten in the bed and the little one said, 'roll over.' You know the rest. They actually enter all ten beads in one row and then move them all over to the other side, drop off one and put 9 back on the other side. This seems to help them see quantities too.

The key is to not be frustrated. Stop and play the quantity games in the Appendix and then come back to it. Sometimes we try too hard to see something and in a day or two it will be clear. Just don't give up on RS. It is so profoundly different that your children will be thinking mathematically and really understanding math and loving it soon.
Nancy

Thanks Nancy,

I appreciate your advice and you really encouraged me. We started Lesson 6 today and it starts with show 7 with your fingers. She could not remember to do this so I had her show five and she could...then we did six, and seven. Then we did the abacus and she understands showing five...but she is lost when it comes to the quantity six or seven. So then we went back to the tally sticks and tried that and she couldn't remember either. So I showed her helped her show six and sang the section of Yellow is the Sun for six and then asked her again what quantity it ways right after I had told her and she coudln't remember .

We probably have moved too fast...because we have done 6 lessons in six days...and not all of the lessons were consecutive. There was a week between the fourth and fifth lesson because I had a medical issue come up and was unable to do school. I should have reviewed past lessons to refresh her memory.

I really appreciate your advice and I will go back and review quantities and I will do the games when we get that far(the quantities games start on lesson 9). Or maybe I can modify the quantities game to only do the quantities we have learned so far 1-7.

I was not taught to do mental math...and I think sometimes it is hard for me to trust that they can really learn to think this way.

Thanks again.